Control of information units in fibre channel communications

• US 7,500,030 B2
• Filed: 08/30/2006
• Issued: 03/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 08/30/2006
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Micka, William Frank, Hathorn, Roger Gregory, Kalos, Matthew Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Hafiz; Tariq
• Assistant Examiner(s): Vidwan; Jasjit S
• Application Number:
  US11/468,720
• Publication Number:
  US 20080123681A1
• Time in Patent Office: 916 Days
• Field of Search: 709/211, 709/212, 709/225, 709/231, 709/237
• US Class Current: 710/33
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0611 in relation to response time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

A primary storage control unit receives an information unit from a remote host over a fibre channel connection. The primary storage control unit adjusts an information unit pacing parameter included in a response sent from the primary storage control unit to the remote host, wherein the information unit pacing parameter indicates the number of information units that the remote host is allowed to send to the primary storage control unit without waiting for any additional response from the primary storage control unit.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, at a primary storage control unit, an information unit from a remote host over a fibre channel connection; and

adjusting, by the primary storage control unit, an information unit pacing parameter included in a response sent from the primary storage control unit to the remote host, wherein the information unit pacing parameter indicates the number of information units that the remote host is allowed to send to the primary storage control unit without waiting for any additional response from the primary storage control unit, wherein the information unit is a channel command word in a fibre connect protocol, and wherein the received channel command word starts a channel command word chain, the method further comprising;

(i) determining whether the channel command word comprises a define subsystem operation command that defines a subsystem operation for extended remote copy operations;

(ii) determining the number of read record set commands associated with the define subsystem operation command, wherein a read record set command corresponds to a read request, wherein the number of read record set commands indicates the number of read requests that are to follow from the remote host to the primary storage control unit during the extended remote copy operations; and

(iii) setting the information unit pacing parameter to a value that is two more than the number of read record set commands to allow the remote host to send remaining information units without requiring the additional response from the primary storage control unit.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the information unit pacing parameter is set to a number that is greater than sixteen, and wherein the number of read record set commands exceed 150 channel command words.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein setting the information unit pacing parameter to the value that is two more than the number of read record set commands causes the value to be large enough to allow the remote host to send the remaining information units without requiring the additional response from the primary storage control unit, wherein the channel command word chain from the remote host ends with a perform subsystem function command and a read subsystem data command, and wherein the information unit pacing parameter is set to the value that is two more than the number of read record set commands to account for the perform subsystem function command and the read subsystem data command that are included at the end of the channel command word chain.

4. The method of claim 3, the method further comprising:

setting the information unit pacing parameter to zero, in response to determining that the channel command word does not comprise a define subsystem operation command, wherein by setting the information unit pacing parameter to zero a default information unit pacing credit is used in the fibre channel connect protocol used for communicating between the remote host and the primary storage control unit.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the remote host performs extended remote copying of data from the primary storage control unit to a remote storage control unit, wherein the remote host is geographically separated from the primary storage control unit by a distance of over a hundred kilometers, and wherein a distance between the remote host and the primary storage control unit exceeds a maximum distance supported by fibre channel architecture by using fibre channel extension solutions.

6. A method for deploying computing infrastructure, comprising integrating computer-readable code into a primary storage control unit, wherein the code in combination with the primary storage control unit is capable of performing:

receiving, at the primary storage control unit, an information unit from a remote host over a fibre channel connection; and

adjusting, by the primary storage control unit, an information unit pacing parameter included in a response sent from the primary storage control unit to the remote host, wherein the information unit pacing parameter indicates the number of information units that the remote host is allowed to send to the primary storage control unit without waiting for any additional response from the primary storage control unit, wherein the information unit is a channel command word in a fibre connect protocol, and wherein the received channel command word starts a channel command word chain, the method further comprising;

(i) determining whether the channel command word comprises a define subsystem operation command that defines a subsystem operation for extended remote copy operations;

(ii) determining the number of read record set commands associated with the define subsystem operation command, wherein a read record set command corresponds to a read request, wherein the number of read record set commands indicates the number of read requests that are to follow from the remote host to the primary storage control unit during the extended remote copy operations; and

(iii) setting the information unit pacing parameter to a value that is two more than the number of read record set commands to allow the remote host to send remaining information units without requiring the additional response from the primary storage control unit.

7. The method for deploying computing infrastructure of claim 6, wherein the information unit pacing parameter is set to a number that is greater than sixteen, and wherein the number of read record set commands exceed 150 channel command words.

8. The method for deploying computing infrastructure of claim 6, wherein setting the information unit pacing parameter to the value that is two more than the number of read record set commands causes the value to be large enough to allow the remote host to send the remaining information units without requiring the additional response from the primary storage control unit, wherein the channel command word chain from the remote host ends with a perform subsystem function command and a read subsystem data command, and wherein the information unit pacing parameter is set to the value that is two more than the number of read record set commands to account for the perform subsystem function command and the read subsystem data command that are included at the end of the channel command word chain.

9. The method for deploying computing infrastructure of claim 8, wherein the code in combination with the computing system is further capable of performing:

setting the information unit pacing parameter to zero, in response to determining that the channel command word does not comprise a define subsystem operation command, wherein by setting the information unit pacing parameter to zero a default information unit pacing credit is used in the fibre channel connect protocol used for communicating between the remote host and the primary storage control unit.

10. The method for deploying computing infrastructure of claim 6, wherein the remote host performs extended remote copying of data from the primary storage control unit to a remote storage control unit, wherein the remote host is geographically separated from the primary storage control unit by a distance of over a hundred kilometers, and wherein a distance between the remote host and the primary storage control unit exceeds a maximum distance supported by fibre channel architecture by using fibre channel extension solutions.