Method to increase bandwidth of a cluster system

• US 6,449,248 B1
• Filed: 07/11/2000
• Issued: 09/10/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 07/11/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: SeaChange International Incorporated
• Original Assignee: SeaChange International Incorporated
• Inventors: Mann, Bruce E., Trasatti, Philip J.
• Primary Examiner(s): CANGIALOSI, SALVATORE A
• Application Number:
  US09/613,391
• Time in Patent Office: 791 Days
• Field of Search: 370/216, 348/282, 711/114, 707/202
• US Class Current: 370/216
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1076 Parity data used in redundant arrays of independent storages, e.g. in RAID systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1088 Reconstruction on already foreseen single or plurality of spare disks
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2211/1028 Distributed, i.e. distributed RAID systems with parity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/505 considering the load

Abstract

A method for increasing service bandwidth in a cluster system having at least three nodes is described. The method includes storing data according to a distributed, redundant process, skipping one remote node when redundant data is stored on a reading node, and reading data from the cluster system using a stripe row reading process by applying an XOR operation to the redundant portion stored on the reading node.

Claims

1. A method for increasing service bandwidth in a cluster system having at least three nodes comprising:

storing data input according to a distributed, redundant storage process with data stored at each node and a portion of a redundant representation of the data stored at each node;

skipping one remote node when redundant data is stored on a reading node and there has not been a failure of any of the nodes; and

reading data from the cluster system using a stripe row read process by applying an XOR operation to the redundant portion stored on the reading node.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising skipping a different node each time the XOR operation is used to balance the read operation.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein each portion of the redundant data is stored in a round-robin manner in each node of the cluster system.

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising disabling the method if one of the nodes fails.

5. A method for operating a cluster system having at least three nodes to increase the service bandwidth when operating in a non-degraded mode comprising:

storing data input according to a distributed, redundant storage process with data stored at each node and a portion of a redundant representation of the data stored at each node;

skipping one remote node when redundant data is stored on a reading node; and

reading data from the cluster system using a stripe row read process by applying an XOR operation to the redundant portion stored on the reading node.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising skipping a different node each time the XOR operation is used to balance the read operation.

7. The method of claim 5 wherein each portion of the redundant data is stored in a round-robin manner in each node of the cluster system.

8. An article comprising a computer readable medium which stores computer executable instructions for increasing the service bandwidth of a computer clister system that includes at least three nodes, the instructions causing the cluster system to:

store data input according to a distributed, redundant storage process so that data is stored at each node and a portion of a redundant representation of the data is stored at each node;

skip one remote node when redundant data is stored on a reading node and none of the nodes has failed; and

read data from the cluster system using a stripe row read process by applying an XOR operation to the redundant portion stored on the reading node.

9. The article of claim 8, the instructions further causing the cluster system to skip a different node each time the XOR operation is used to balance the read operation.

10. The article of claim 8, the instructions causing each portion of the redundant data to be stored in a round-robin manner in each node of the cluster system.

11. The article of claim 8, the instructions further causing the method to be disabled if one of the nodes fails.