System and method for a multi-node environment with shared storage

• US 7,437,386 B2
• Filed: 09/20/2002
• Issued: 10/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2001
• 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: Rokop, Terence M., Spitzer, Michael J., Callahan, Michael J., Casper, Corene, Dove, Kenneth F., Kingsbury, Brent A., Krueger, Phil E.
• Primary Examiner(s): LEROUX, ETIENNE PIERRE
• Application Number:
  US10/251,895
• Publication Number:
  US 20030065686A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,216 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/2, 707/10, 707/200, 707/8, 711/165, 709/224
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0709 in a distributed system consisting of a plurality of standalone computer nodes, e.g. clusters, client-server systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/526 Mutual exclusion algorithms
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99938 Concurrency, e.g. lock management in shared database
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99953 Recoverability

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed for providing multi-node environment comprising a first node associated with a first operating system; a second node associated with a second operating system, wherein the second operating system is independent of the first operating system; a storage; and an interconnect coupling the first node with the storage and coupling the second node with the storage; and wherein the first node directly accesses the storage and the second node directly accesses the storage.

Claims

1. A system for a multi-node environment comprising:

a first node associated with a first operating system;

a second node associated with a second operating system, wherein the second operating system is independent of the first operating system;

a storage;

an interconnect coupling the first node with the storage and coupling the second node with the storage; and

wherein the first node directly accesses the storage and the second node directly accesses the storage, the first node and the second node share at least a same portion of the storage without relying on locking functionality built into the storage, and the interconnect is configured to allow a third node to be added to the interconnect when an administrator node grants the third node access to the storage, and wherein the administrator node comprises the first node, the second node, or the third node.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first operating system is a different operating system than the second operating system.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the storage is coherent shared file storage.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the interconnect is a shared disk interconnect.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the second node is dynamically decoupled wherein the second node no longer directly accesses the storage.

6. The system of claim 1, further comprising a second storage that is dynamically added such that the second storage is directly accessible by the first and second nodes.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising a second storage wherein the second storage is directly accessible by the first and second nodes, and wherein the second storage is dynamically decoupled from the first and second nodes such that the second storage is no longer directly accessible by the first and second nodes.

8. A system for a multi-node environment comprising:

a first node associated with a membership group, wherein the first node is associated with a first operating system;

a second node associated with the membership group, wherein the second node is associated with a second operating system, and wherein the second operating system is independent of the first operating system;

storage coupled with the first and second nodes, the storage being directly accessible by the first node and the second node and the first node and the second node share at least a same portion of the storage without relying on locking functionality built into the storage; and

wherein the first node is configured to determine whether the membership group has changed, and the membership group is configured to allow a third node to be added to the membership group when an administrator node grants the third node access to the storage, and wherein the administrator node comprises the first node, the second node, or the third node.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the first node dynamically adjusts to the change in the membership group.

10. A method for managing a multi-node environment comprising:

associating a first node with a membership group, wherein the first node is associated with a first operating system, and wherein the first node directly accesses a storage;

associating a second node with the membership group, wherein the second node is associated with a second operating system, and wherein the second operating system is independent of the first operating system, and wherein the second node directly accesses the storage;

determining whether the membership group has changed; and

dynamically adjusting to the change in the membership group;

wherein the first node and the second node share at least a same portion of the storage without relying on locking functionality built into the storage, and the membership group is configured to allow a third node to be added to the membership group when an administrator node grants the third node access to the storage, and wherein the administrator node comprises the first node, the second node, or the third node.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the first operating system is a different operating system than the second operating system.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the membership group changed due to adding the third node to the membership group.

13. The method of claim 10, wherein the third node is associated with the membership group and wherein the membership group changed due to subtracting the third node from the membership group.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising determining whether recovery needs to be performed if the membership group has changed.

15. The method of claim 10, further comprising recovering locks if the membership group has changed and if a recovery is necessary.

16. The method of claim 10, further comprising stopping granting of new locks if the membership group has changed.

17. A system for a first node configured to be associated with a multi-node environment comprising:

a processor configured to be associated with a first operating system, wherein the first operating system is independent of a second operating system of a second node;

the processor also configured to be capable of determining whether a membership group has changed, wherein the membership group is associated with the first node and the second node; and

also configured to be capable of dynamically adjusting to the change in the membership group; and

a storage coupled to the processor, wherein the storage is configured to be directly accessed by the processor and also configured to be directly accessed by the second node, and the first node and the second node share at least a same portion of the storage without relying on locking functionality built into the storage;

wherein the membership group is configured to allow a third node to be added to the membership group when an administrator node grants the third node access to the storage, and wherein the administrator nodes comprises the first node, the second node, or the third node.

18. A computer program product for a first node configured to be associated with a multi-node environment, the computer program product being embodied in a computer readable storage medium comprising computer instructions for:

determining whether a membership group has changed, wherein the membership group is associated with the first node and a second node, and wherein the first node is associated with a first operating system and the second node is associated with a second operating system, and wherein the first operating system is independent of the second operating system;

dynamically adjusting to the change in the membership group; and

directly accessing a storage, wherein the storage is also directly accessible by the second node, and the first node and the second node share at least a same portion of the storage without relying on locking functionality built into the storage;

wherein the membership group is configured to allow a third node to be added to the membership group when an administrator node grants the third node access to the storage, and wherein the administrator node comprises the first node, the second node, or the third node.