DETERMINING MULTIPLE VIRTUAL HOST PORTS ON A SAME PHYSICAL HOST PORT

• US 20200133895A1
• Filed: 10/31/2018
• Published: 04/30/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 10/31/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Crowley, Owen, Smith, Erik P., Rowlands, Scott, Don, Arieh
• Granted Patent: US 10,970,233 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/1605 based on arbitration arbitration in handling access to a common bus or bus system G06F13/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45575 Starting, stopping, suspending or resuming 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 2009/45583 Memory management, e.g. access or allocation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45587 Isolation or security of virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45595 Network integration; Enabling network access in virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/0008 High speed serial bus, e.g. Fiber channel
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects

Abstract

Multiple virtual host ports corresponding to a same physical host port may be determined by or on behalf of a storage system, for example, in response to logging the one or more virtual host ports into the storage system. For one or more virtual host ports, it may be determined whether the virtual host port is connected to a same fabric port as another virtual host port, where a fabric port is a port of a fabric configured to connect to a virtual host port. If two virtual host ports are determined to be connected to a same fabric port, it may be concluded that the two virtual host ports correspond to (e.g., share) a same physical host port. One or more actions may be taken on a storage network based at least in part on a determination that two virtual host ports are sharing a same physical host port.

Claims

1. A method of determining that at least two virtual host ports correspond to a same physical host port of a host system, comprising:

determining a plurality of virtual host ports connected to a storage system by a switch;

determining that the at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of the switch; and

determining that the at least two virtual host ports correspond to the same physical host port based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports being connected to the same fabric port of the switch.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether there is a single point of failure between a storage device of the storage system and an application layer of a host system based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that a workload corresponds to a first of the at least two ports based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising;

determining that a port on the storage system is not at fault for one or more communication failures between the storage system port and the at least two virtual host ports based at least in part on the at least two ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

prior to determining that at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of a switch, determining that the at least two ports are of a same host system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein determining that at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of a switch includes:

the storage system issuing a query to the switch, the query including an identifier of at least one of the at least two virtual host ports; and

the switch sending to the storage system a response to the query, the response including an identifier of the fabric port.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the query is a GFPN_ID query in accordance with a Fibre Channel protocol.

14. The storage system of claim 6, wherein the query is a GFPN_ID query in accordance with a Fibre Channel protocol.

8. A storage system comprising:

one or more processors; and

a memory comprising code stored thereon that, when executed, performs a method of determining that at least two virtual host ports correspond to a same physical host port of a host system, the method comprising;

determining a plurality of virtual host ports connected to a storage system by a switch;

determining that the at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of the switch; and

determining that the at least two virtual host ports correspond to the same physical host port based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports being connected to the same fabric port of the switch.

9. The storage system of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises:

determining whether there is a single point of failure between a storage device of the storage system and an application layer of a host system based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

10. The storage system of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises:

determining that a workload corresponds to a first of the at least two ports based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

11. The storage system of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises;

determining that a port on the storage system is not at fault for one or more communication failures between the storage system port and the at least two virtual host ports based at least in part on the at least two ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

12. The storage system of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises:

prior to determining that at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of a switch, determining that the at least two ports are of a same host system.

13. The storage system of claim 8, wherein determining that at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of a switch includes:

the storage system issuing a query to the switch, the query including an identifier of at least one of the at least two virtual host ports; and

the switch sending to the storage system a response to the query, the response including an identifier of the fabric port.

15. One or more non-transitory computer-readable media for a storage system, the computer-readable media having software stored thereon defining a method of determining that at least two virtual host ports correspond to a same physical host port of a host system, the software comprising:

executable code that determines a plurality of virtual host ports connected to a storage system by a switch;

executable code that determines that at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of the switch; and

executable code that determines that the at least two virtual host ports correspond to the same physical host port based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports being connected to the same fabric port of the switch.

16. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the software further comprises:

executable code that determines whether there is a single point of failure between a storage device of the storage system and an application layer of a host system based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the software further comprises:

executable code that determines that a workload corresponds to a first of the at least two ports based at least in part on the at least two virtual host ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the software further comprises;

executable code that determines that a port on the storage system is not at fault for one or more communication failures between the storage system port and the at least two virtual host ports based at least in part on the at least two ports corresponding to a same physical host port.

19. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the software further comprises:

executable code that, prior to determining that at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of a switch, determines that the at least two ports are of a same host system.

20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15, wherein the executable code that determines that at least two of the plurality of virtual host ports are connected to a same fabric port of a switch includes:

executable code that controls the storage system issuing a query to the switch, the query including an identifier of at least one of the at least two virtual host ports to cause the switch to send to the storage system a response to the query, the response including an identifier of the fabric port.