Modular storage server architecture with dynamic data management

• US 6,233,607 B1
• Filed: 04/01/1999
• Issued: 05/15/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 04/01/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Cox Communications Incorporated (Cox Enterprises Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: DIVA Systems Corporation
• Inventors: Lerman, Jesse S., Taylor, Clement G., Chin, Danny
• Primary Examiner(s): Najjar, Saleh
• Application Number:
  US09/283,895
• Time in Patent Office: 775 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/203, 709/215, 709/217, 709/219, 709/231, 711/100, 711/114, 711/158
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory

Abstract

A method of data management for efficiently storing and retrieving data in response to user access requests. The architecture comprises a plurality of disk drives over which data is distributed, and a plurality of processors, each of which is assigned to a subset of the disk drives in a modular fashion. The server architecture employs dynamic data management methods and load-balancing methods to assign user requests to processors. The modular server architecture, in combination with the dynamic data management and load balancing methods, provides both good performance (i.e., low expected-case access times and high disk bandwidth), and fault-tolerance. The architecture is particularly well suited to video-on-demand systems in which a video server stores a library of movies and users submit requests to view particular programs.

Claims

1. In a storage server comprising a plurality of modules, each of said modules comprising a processor and a plurality of disks and a host controller, a method comprising the steps of:

receiving data requests issued from a plurality of clients,

sending vote solicitations from said host controller to each of said modules, each of said vote solicitations containing the name of the requested data,

receiving votes from said modules that have said requested data on the module'"'"'s respective disks, each of said votes containing a module ID,

if one or more of said votes are received,

selecting one of said votes according to a voting algorithm,

forwarding said data request to the module that sent the selected vote, and

after said module retrieves said requested data from the respective disks, receiving said data from said module and sending said data to said clients issuing said data request.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein if none of said votes are received, retrieving the requested data from secondary storage.

3. The method of claim 1, where said votes contain data in addition to said module ID.

4. The method of claim 3, where said additional data in said vote is a numeric value denoting the load of the module that sent said vote.

5. The method of claim 4, where said voting algorithm selects the vote having the lowest numeric value.

6. The method of claim 1, where said data stored in secondary storage and on said disks are video programs.

7. The method of claim 1, where said data is stored on disk using RAID.

8. The method of claim 1, where said requested data, when retrieved from secondary storage, is stored on disk in one of said modules.

9. The method of claim 8, where storing said data on disk is preceded by deleting data on said disks.

10. The method of claim 1, where user data requests waiting for service at one of said modules are migrated to another of said modules.

11. The method of claim 10, where said migration is based on the loads of said first and second modules.

12. The method of claim 1, where the degree of replication of a data item is based on the frequency with which said data item is requested.

13. The method of claim 12, where said degree of replication changes dynamically with time.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of migrating data residing on the disks of one of said modules to another of said modules.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein said data is migrated based on the frequency with which said data item is requested.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of migrating data residing on the disks of one of said modules to different tracks in said disks.

17. The method of claim 16, where said data is migrated based on the frequency with which said data item is requested.

18. The method of claim 6, where said data is stored on disk as a short leader track and a long video program.