Atomically Committing Write Requests

• US 20160342351A1
• Filed: 01/23/2014
• Published: 11/24/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Inventors: Zhao, Jishen, Li, Sheng, Chang, Jichuan, Ranganathan, Parthasarathy, Veitch, Alistair, Lim, Kevin T., Lillibridge, Mark
• Granted Patent: US 10,152,247 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1471 involving logging of persistent data for recovery
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1474 in transactions G06F16/20 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/805 Real-time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0658 Controller construction arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0679 Non-volatile semiconductor memory device, e.g. flash memory, one time programmable memory [OTP]
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 27/36 Monitoring, i.e. supervising the progress of recording or reproducing for digital recording G11B20/00 and s.gr.; for monitoring, testing or measuring of TV recorders of the type covered by H04N5/76 and subgroups, see H04N17/06

Abstract

A technique includes acquiring a plurality of write requests from at least one memory controller and logging information associated with the plurality of write requests in persistent storage. The technique includes applying the plurality of write requests atomically as a group to persistent storage.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

acquiring a plurality of write requests from at least one memory controller;

logging information associated with the plurality of write requests in persistent storage; and

applying the plurality of write requests atomically as a group to persistent storage.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the plurality of write requests by executing machine executable instructions by at least one processor, wherein the logging is performed transparently with respect to the operations of the at least one processor.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the acquiring comprises probing a queue of the at least one memory controller.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

applying the plurality of requests in response to a commit signal.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein acquiring the plurality of write requests comprises accumulating write requests associated with a memory region associated with an atomic unit.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the logging comprises redo logging or undo logging.

7. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor to issue write requests;

at least one memory controller to process the write requests;

a log accelerator to;

acquire the write requests;

identify a plurality of the write requests as being commonly associated with an atomic unit;

perform logging of information associated with the plurality of write requests; and

apply the plurality of write requests atomically to commit the plurality of write requests to persistent storage.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the log accelerator performs the logging transparently with respect to the operations of the at least one processor.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the log accelerator applies the plurality of write requests atomically in a process that comprises writing and flushing at least one commit record to a non-volatile memory.

10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the log accelerator uses an associated logging memory space for the logging of the plurality of write requests and reuses the logging space after commitment of the plurality of write requests.

11. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the log accelerator comprises hardware separate from the at least one memory controller.

12. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein:

the at least one processor, the at least one memory controller and the log accelerator being associated with a first node;

the log accelerator further performs redo logging; and

the at least one processor further communicates data associated with the redo logging to a second node other than the first node to maintain a consistent state of the data on the second node.

13. An article comprising a non-transitory storage medium to store instructions that when executed by at least one processor cause the at least one processor to:

generate a plurality of write requests, wherein information about the plurality of write requests is logged by a log accelerator in persistent storage, the log accelerator acquires the write requests from at least one memory controller, and the logging by the logging accelerator occurs without involving intervention by the at least one processor; and

signal the log accelerator to apply the plurality of write requests atomically as a group to persistent storage.

14. The article of claim 13, the storage medium storing instructions that when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to direct the plurality of write requests to a memory region associated with an atomic unit.

15. The article of claim 13, wherein:

the at least one processor, the at least one memory controller, and the log accelerator are associated with a first node;

the log accelerator further performs redo logging; and

the storage medium to store instructions that when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to communicate data associated with the redo logging to a second node other than the first node to maintain a consistent state of the data on the second node.