Data redundancy system and method

• US 7,152,182 B2
• Filed: 06/06/2003
• Issued: 12/19/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Valtrus Innovations Limited (f/k/a Dolya Holdco 9 Limited) (Key Patent Innovations Limited)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Ji, Minwen, Wilkes, John, Veitch, Alistair
• Primary Examiner(s): Beausoliel, Robert
• Assistant Examiner(s): MCCARTHY, CHRISTOPHER S
• Application Number:
  US10/456,053
• Publication Number:
  US 20040260977A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,292 Days
• Field of Search: 718/101, 714/6, 714/5, 714/43, 709/233, 709/223, 711/162
• US Class Current: 714/5.11
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/004 Error avoidance G06F11/07 and subgroups take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2064 while ensuring consistency
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2066 Optimisation of the communication load
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2074 Asynchronous techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/82 Solving problems relating to consistency

Abstract

Techniques for performing data redundancy operations in a fault-tolerant manner. In one aspect, a primary data storage facility stores a primary copy of data and a secondary facility stores data that is redundant of the primary copy of the data. The primary facility includes a first redundancy appliance that receives a sequence of write requests and stores data for the sequence of write requests in storage associated with the primary storage facility. A second redundancy appliance shadows the first redundancy appliance and assumes the role of the first redundancy appliance in the event of a fault at the first redundancy appliance. In this way, fault tolerance is increased by the presence of the second, shadow appliance.

Claims

1. A data redundancy system, comprising:

a primary storage facility for storing a primary copy of data, the primary storage facility including;

a first redundancy appliance operable in a role for receiving a sequence of write requests and for storing data for the sequence of write requests in storage associated with the primary storage facility; and

a second redundancy appliance for shadowing the first redundancy appliance wherein the second redundancy appliance assumes the role of the first redundancy appliance;

a secondary storage facility for storing data that is redundant of the primary copy of the data, the secondary storage facility discrete from the primary storage facility and including;

a third redundancy appliance operable in a role for storing redundant data for the sequence of write requests in storage associated with the secondary facility; and

a fourth redundancy appliance for shadowing the third redundancy appliance wherein the fourth redundancy appliance assumes the role of the third redundancy appliance in the event of a fault at the third redundancy appliance.

2. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein the secondary storage facility assumes the role of the primary storage facility in response to a failover event, the failover event including a communication traffic condition having a greater portion of request traffic originating closer to the secondary storage facility than to the primary storage facility.

3. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein the second redundancy appliance assumes the role of the first redundancy appliance in response to a failover event selected from the group consisting of a manually initiated event and an automatically initiated event.

4. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein the first redundancy appliance updates the second redundancy appliance with information about the data in storage by forwarding a write record to the second redundancy appliance for each write request, the second redundancy appliance sending acknowledgements to the first redundancy appliance in batches in response to receiving write records.

5. The data redundancy system according to claim 4, wherein the first redundancy appliance sends an acknowledgement to an originator of the write request in response to receiving the acknowledgement from the second redundancy appliance.

6. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein the first redundancy appliance is disjoint from the second redundancy appliance.

7. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein the second redundancy appliance maintains a shadow copy of data stored by the first redundancy appliance wherein the second redundancy appliance accesses the shadow copy of the data when the second redundancy appliance assumes the role of the first redundancy appliance.

8. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein the second redundancy appliance accesses the data stored in storage by the first redundancy appliance when the second redundancy appliance acts as the first redundancy appliance in response to a failover event.

9. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein the first redundancy appliance forwards redundant data to the secondary storage facility as send batches.

10. The data redundancy system according to claim 9, wherein a send batch size is determined according to either a time interval for collecting transactions into the send batch or a predetermined quantity of transactions to be included in the send batch.

11. The data redundancy system according to claim 9, wherein a send batch size is determined adaptively based on available communication bandwidth between the primary storage facility and the secondary storage facility.

12. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein a first write transaction in a send batch at the primary storage facility is replaced with a second write transaction where the second write transaction overwrites data written by the first write transaction.

13. The data redundancy system according to claim 1, wherein the third redundancy appliance stores redundant data to the storage associated with the secondary facility according to receive batches.

14. The data redundancy system according to claim 13, wherein the third redundancy appliance stores a receive batch after the receive batch is determined safe to apply.

15. The data redundancy system according to claim 14, wherein a receive batch is determined safe to apply when a data integrity test is successfully performed.

16. The data redundancy system according to claim 13, wherein a first write transaction in a first receive batch at the secondary storage facility is replaced with a second write transaction in a second receive batch wherein the second write transaction overwrites data written by the first write transaction and the first and second receive batches are combined.

17. A data redundancy method for storing a primary copy of data at a primary storage facility and for storing data that is redundant of the primary copy at a secondary storage facility, the method comprising:

receiving a sequence of write requests at a first redundancy appliance at the primary storage facility;

storing data for the sequence of write requests in primary storage at the primary storage facility;

logging at least a sequence of write requests for transfer to the secondary storage facility;

forwarding the logged write requests as send batches to a second redundancy appliance at the secondary storage facility disjoint from the primary storage facility, the second storage facility batching the received write request as receive batches;

storing data associated with the receive batches in secondary storage at the secondary storage facility;

replacing a first write transaction in a receive batch at the second storage facility with a second write transaction wherein the second write transaction overwrites data written by the first write transaction; and

the second redundancy appliance acting as the first redundancy appliance in response to a failover event.

18. A data redundancy system, comprising:

a primary storage facility including at least one primary redundancy appliance for receiving a sequence of write requests and for storing data for the sequence of write requests in storage associated with the primary storage facility, the primary storage facility batching the write requests as send batches for transfer to a secondary storage facility; and

the secondary storage facility disjoint from the primary storage facility including at least one secondary redundancy appliance for receiving the sequence of write requests and for storing data for the sequence of write requests in storage associated with the secondary storage facility, the second storage facility batching the received write request as receive batches, the second redundancy appliance acting as the primary redundancy appliance in response to a failover event;

wherein a first write transaction in a receive batch at the second storage facility is replaced with a second write transaction where the second write transaction overwrites data written by the first write transaction.