System and method for managing data flow and measuring service in a storage network

• US 6,742,020 B1
• Filed: 06/08/2000
• Issued: 05/25/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Dimitroff, John, Nguyen, Minh Chau Alvin
• Primary Examiner(s): Wiley, David
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, PHUOC H
• Application Number:
  US09/589,778
• Time in Patent Office: 1,447 Days
• Field of Search: 709/226, 709/224, 709/201, 709/213, 709/217, 707/201, 707/10, 707/8, 707/5, 707/2
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/275 Synchronous replication

Abstract

A computer network has several machines, including machines having storage systems, and communication resources for communicating between the machines. A metadata registry having information about data stored on the network is distributed on two or more machines of the network, and local copies of part of this metadata registry reside on a compute machine of the network. The metadata registry has a command object that comprises network address information about at least some of the machines of the computer network that participate in a first communication. An agent monitors communications between the machines of the computer network for communications relevant to the command object, the agent modifies the command object by adding network address information of additional machines of the computer network that should participate in the first communication between said machines to maintain coherency of the metadata registry and local copies thereof.

Claims

1. A computer network comprising:

a plurality of machines further comprising a first machine, a second machine, and a third machine;

communication resources for communicating between and coupled to the machines of the plurality of machines, the communication resources further comprising a switch;

a first storage system coupled to the first machine, the first storage system containing a first portion of a metadata registry;

a second storage system coupled to the second machine, the second storage system containing a second portion of the metadata registry, and wherein the second portion of the metadata registry is permitted to overlap the first portion of the metadata registry;

wherein the third machine contains a local copy of part of the metadata registry;

wherein a command object of the metadata registry comprises network address information about at least some of the machines of the computer network that participate in a first communication between said machines;

and wherein an agent monitors additional communications between the machines of the computer network for communications relevant to the command object, the agent being configured to modify the command object by adding thereto network address information of additional machines of the computer network that should participate in the first communication between said machines to maintain coherency of the metadata registry.

2. The computer network of claim 1, wherein the agent resides on the switch.

3. The computer network of claim 1, wherein the agent resides on the second machine.

4. The computer network of claim 1, wherein the metadata registry further comprises resource information of at least some available storage resources coupled to machines of the network, the resource information comprising capacity and latency information for at least two devices and network interface bandwidth information of the machines to which the available storage resources are coupled.

5. The network of claim 4, wherein the command object further comprises a quality-of-service object comprising a desired capacity, latency, and bandwidth, wherein an allocator selects a resource of the available storage resources according to criteria comprising the desired capacity, latency, and bandwidth of the quality-of-service object and the resource information of the metadata registry.

6. The network of claim 5, wherein the metadata registry further comprises network topology information, the quality-of-service object comprises desired network hop information, and wherein in selecting a resource the allocator considers criteria further comprising the desired network hop information and the network topology information.

7. The network of claim 6, wherein the metadata registry further comprises network load information, and wherein in selecting a resource the allocator considers criteria further comprising the network load information.

8. The network of claim 6, wherein the metadata registry further comprises information of processing resources of the network, wherein the quality-of-service object further comprises desired processing resources, and wherein in selecting a resource the allocator considers criteria further comprising the desired processing resources of the quality-of-service object.

9. The network of claim 8, wherein the command object is initially created by the third machine, wherein first communication involves communication of data to the second machine, and wherein the command object comprises code for execution on the second machine during execution of the command object.

10. The network of claim 7, further comprising a load balancer.