MAINTAINING STORAGE PROFILE CONSISTENCY IN A CLUSTER HAVING LOCAL AND SHARED STORAGE

• US 20160125016A1
• Filed: 10/31/2014
• Published: 05/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Cota-Robles, Erik, Nema, Kanika, Jensen, Thorbjoern Donbaek
• Granted Patent: US 9,830,349 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2365 Ensuring data consistency and integrity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0853 by actively collecting configuration information or by backing up configuration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements

Abstract

A per device state is introduced that indicates whether a storage device is shared clusterwide or not. The state may be populated by default based on detected device locality. Devices detected as local and those shared by only a subset of host machines in a cluster of machines may have the state set to “FALSE.” Devices which are shared by all the machines in a cluster may have the state set to “TRUE.” Locality of storage devices in a cluster may be modified using such state information. Operations upon other storage device state may be modified depending upon device sharing state.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

accessing, by a computer processor, a profile comprising a plurality of profile data sets, each profile data set comprising a device identifier (ID) of a profile device and a sharing state of the profile device, wherein the sharing state is in a first data state or a second data state;

accessing, by the computer processor, a plurality of host data sets from a target host machine, each host data set comprising a device ID of a host device accessible from the target host machine and a sharing state of the host device; and

performing, by the computer processor, an action for a given device, the action being determined from among a plurality of actions based on whether a device ID of the given device appears in only the plurality of profile data sets, or in only the plurality of host data sets, or in both the plurality of profile data sets and the plurality of host data sets.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the sharing state associated with a device indicates whether or not the associated device is shared clusterwide among all host machines in a cluster of host machines.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the action is further determined based on the sharing state of the given device when the device ID of the given device appears in only the plurality of profile data sets.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the action is further determined based on the sharing state of the given device when the device ID of the given device appears in only the plurality of host data sets.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein when the device ID of the given device appears in both a first profile data set and a first host data set, the action includes setting the sharing state of the given device in the target host machine to be the same as the sharing state as set forth in the first profile data set.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein performing an action comprises:

performing a first action for a given device, by the computer processor, when a device ID (“

given device ID”

) for the given device appears among the plurality of profile data sets and does not appear among the plurality of host data sets;

performing a second action for the given device, by the computer processor, when the given device ID appears among the plurality of host data sets and does not appear among the plurality of profile data sets; and

performing a third action for the given device, by the computer processor, when the given device ID appears in the plurality of profile data sets and in the plurality of host data sets.

7. The method of claim 6, further wherein the first action is performed when the sharing state corresponding to the given device ID in the plurality of profile data sets indicates the given device is shared clusterwide in a cluster of host machines.

8. The method of claim 6, further wherein the second action is performed when the sharing state corresponding to the given device ID in the plurality of host data sets indicates the given device is shared clusterwide in a cluster of host machines.

9. The method of claim 6, further wherein the third action is performed when the sharing state corresponding to the given device ID in the plurality of profile data sets is different from the sharing state corresponding to the given device ID in the plurality of host data sets.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein profile devices and host devices are storage-type devices.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein host devices comprise storage devices that are shared clusterwide with the target host machine and at least one other host machine and storage devices that are local to the target host machine.

12. A method comprising:

accessing, by a computer processor, a first task list comprising a plurality of task to perform actions on a target host machine;

adding a task from the first task list to a second task list when the task is not associated with a storage device;

when a task from the first task list is a DELETE task that is associated with a storage device, then selectively adding the DELETE task to the second task list depending on whether the storage device associated with the DELETE task is accessible by a reference host machine; and

when a task from the first task list is an ADD task that is associated with a storage device, then selectively adding the ADD task to the second task list depending on whether the storage device associated with the ADD task is accessible by a reference host machine and accessible by the target host machine.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the DELETE task is added to the second task list when the storage device associated with the DELETE task is accessible by the reference host machine.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the DELETE task is omitted from the second task list when the storage device associated with the DELETE task is not accessible by the reference host machine.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the ADD task is added to the second task list when the storage device associated with the ADD task is accessible by the reference host machine and is marked in the reference host machine as being not shared among host machines in a cluster of host machines and the storage device associated with the ADD task is accessible by the target host machine.

16. The method of claim 12, wherein the ADD task is added to the second task list when the storage device associated with the ADD task is accessible by the reference host machine and the storage device associated with the ADD task is marked in the reference host machine as being shared among host machines in a cluster of host machines.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the ADD task is omitted from the second task list when the storage device associated with the ADD task is accessible by the reference host machine and is marked in the reference host machine as being not shared among host machines in a cluster of host machines and the storage device associated with the ADD task is not accessible by the target host machine.

18. A computer system comprising:

a processor;

a memory; and

a data store having stored thereon computer executable program code, which when executed by the processor causes the processor to;

access a profile from a first host machine in a cluster of host machines, the profile comprising a list of storage devices accessible by the first host machine and a list of corresponding sharing states of the storage devices;

identify a first plurality of storage devices based on their corresponding sharing states and whether or not they are accessible by a second host machine;

generate a plurality of commands to reconfigure settings on the first host machine corresponding to the first plurality storage devices; and

cause execution of the plurality of commands on the first host machine to reconfigure the settings on the first host machine that correspond to the first plurality storage devices.

19. The computer system of claim 18, wherein the first plurality of storage devices includes storage devices having a sharing state indicative of being shared clusterwide and are not accessible by the second host machine and storage devices having a sharing state indicative of being not shared clusterwide and are accessible by the second host machine.

20. The computer system of claim 18, wherein the plurality of commands set a sharing state of the first plurality of storage devices stored on the first host machine.

21. The computer system of claim 19, wherein the plurality of commands comprise only ADD commands and DELETE commands.

22. The computer system of claim 18, wherein the computer executable program code, which when executed by the processor further causes the processor to generate a reference profile by accessing another profile from the first host machine subsequent to execution of the plurality of commands on the first host machine, wherein the reference profile can be used to assess storage device configurations of other host machines in the cluster of host machines.