SYNCHRONOUS REPLICATION ERROR DETECTION AND HANDLING

• US 20160224441A1
• Filed: 01/29/2015
• Published: 08/04/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Dell Products LP (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Arnold, Howard Ernest, Manfield, Jill Leslie
• Granted Patent: US 9,639,436 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/00 Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring error detection, correction or monitoring in information storage based on relative movement between record carrier and transducer G11B20/18; monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing G11B27/36; in static stores G11C29/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0757 by exceeding a time limit, i.e. time-out, e.g. watchdogs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1662 the resynchronized component or unit being a persistent storage device re-synchronization of failed mirror storage G06F11/2082; rebuild or reconstruction of parity RAID storage G06F11/1008
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2074 Asynchronous techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2082 Data synchronisation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2097 maintaining the standby controller/processing unit updated initialisation or re-synchronisation thereof G06F11/1658 and subgroups
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3055 Monitoring arrangements for monitoring the status of the computing system or of the computing system component, e.g. monitoring if the computing system is on, off, available, not available error or fault processing without redundancy G06F11/0703; error detection or correction by redundancy in data representation G06F11/08; error detection or correction by redundancy in operation G06F11/14; error detection or correction by redundancy in hardware G06F11/16
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3466 Performance evaluation by tracing or monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3476 Data logging G06F11/14, G06F11/2205 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual middleware or OS functionality using virtual machines to implement generic software techniques for error detection or fault masking G06F11/1484
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/86 Event-based monitoring

Abstract

Some embodiments are directed to a method, corresponding system, and corresponding apparatus that may store data and may monitor, detect, and handle one or more warning or error indications within one or more synchronized replication volumes. Some embodiments may provide first and second storage pools of storage devices with respective volumes. In some embodiments, the first and second storage pools may not share the same controller. Some embodiments may synchronize the first and second storage pools by a storage device of the first storage pool. Some embodiments may monitor for failures, including but not limited to warnings, soft errors, and/or hard errors, at a storage device of the first storage pool. In some embodiments, the one or more failures may be invisible or inaccessible to a user. Prior to an out of sync event or failure, some embodiments may automatically replace the second volume with the first volume.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method for storing data, the method comprising:

providing a first pool of storage having a first plurality of storage devices and an associated first volume;

providing a second pool of storage having a second plurality of storage devices and an associated second volume, data of the first pool of storage corresponding to data of the second pool of storage, the first pool of storage and the second pool of storage not sharing the same controller;

synchronizing, by a storage device of the first plurality of storage devices, the first pool of storage with the second pool of storage;

monitoring, at a storage device of the first plurality of storage devices, each given storage device of the first plurality of storage devices for one or more warning indications; and

based on results of the monitoring, automatically taking corrective action, prior to a loss of synchronization event and prior to a failure of the first volume.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein automatically taking corrective action includes replacing the second volume with the first volume, prior to the loss of synchronization event and prior to the failure of the first volume.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising, based on results of the monitoring, detecting one or more conditions and initiating the automatically taken corrective action based upon a predefined threshold associated with the one or more conditions.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising, based on results of the monitoring, detecting one or more conditions and initiating the automatically taken corrective action based upon a predefined threshold associated with the one or more conditions.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more warning indications are at least one of:

invisible to a user and inaccessible to a user.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the one or more warning indications include at least one of:

a lost block, a disk error, a port down, a network link error, and a hardware fault.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the storage device of the first plurality of storage devices monitors for one or more warning indications in one or more event logs that are associated with each given storage device.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein automatically taking corrective action further includes running a rescan on the second volume, mounting storage devices of the second volume, registering one or more virtual machines (VMs) of the second volume, and powering on one or more virtual machines (VMs) of the second volume.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein replacing the second volume with the first volume includes configuring the second volume using at least one of:

a different number of storage devices and a different arrangement of storage devices, as compared with the second volume, without loss of data from the first volume.

10. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the synchronizing includes performing one or more bi-directional acknowledgements between the first pool of storage and the second pool of storage.

11. An information handling system (IHS) comprising:

a data module configured to provide a first pool of storage having a first plurality of storage devices and an associated first volume;

the data module further configured to provide a second pool of storage having a second plurality of storage devices and an associated second volume, data of the first pool of storage corresponding to data of the second pool of storage, the first pool of storage and the second pool of storage not sharing the same controller;

a computing module configured to synchronize, by a storage device of the first plurality of storage devices, the first pool of storage with the second pool of storage;

the computing module further configured to monitor, at a storage device of the first plurality of storage devices, each given storage device of the first plurality of storage devices for one or more warning indications; and

the computing module further configured to automatically take corrective action, based on results of the monitoring, prior to a loss of synchronization event and prior to a failure of the first volume.

12. The IHS of claim 11, wherein the computing module is further configured to automatically take corrective action including replacing the second volume with the first volume, prior to the loss of synchronization event and prior to the failure of the first volume.

13. The IHS of claim 11, wherein the computing module is further configured, based on results of the monitoring, to detect one or more conditions and initiate the automatically taken corrective action based upon a predefined threshold associated with the one or more conditions.

14. The IHS of claim 11, wherein the one or more warning indications are at least one of:

invisible to a user and inaccessible to a user.

15. The IHS of claim 11, wherein the one or more warning indications include at least one of:

a lost block, a disk error, a port down, a network link error, and a hardware fault.

16. The IHS of claim 11, wherein the computing module is further configured to monitor, at the storage device of the first plurality of storage devices, for one or more warning indications in one or more event logs that are associated with each given storage device.

17. The IHS of claim 11, wherein the computing module is further configured to automatically take corrective action including running a rescan on the second volume, mounting storage devices of the second volume, registering one or more virtual machines (VMs) of the second volume, and powering on one or more virtual machines (VMs) of the second volume.

18. The IHS of claim 11, wherein the computing module is further configured to replace the second volume with the first volume including configuring the second volume using at least one of:

a different number of storage devices and a different arrangement of storage devices, as compared with the second volume, without loss of data from the first volume.

19. The IHS of claim 11, wherein the computing module is further configured to synchronize including performing one or more bi-directional acknowledgements between the first pool of storage and the second pool of storage.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a sequence of instructions which, when loaded and executed by a processor coupled to an apparatus, causes the apparatus to:

provide a first pool of storage having a first plurality of storage devices and an associated first volume;

provide a second pool of storage having a second plurality of storage devices and an associated second volume, data of the first pool of storage corresponding to data of the second pool of storage, the first pool of storage and the second pool of storage not sharing the same controller;

synchronize, by a storage device of the first plurality of storage devices, the first pool of storage with the second pool of storage;

monitor, at a storage device of the first plurality of storage devices, each given storage device of the first plurality of storage devices for one or more warning indications; and

automatically take corrective action, based on results of the monitoring, prior to a loss of synchronization event and prior to a failure of the first volume.