Fault recovery method in a system having a plurality of storage system

• US 7,603,583 B2
• Filed: 01/04/2008
• Issued: 10/13/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/12/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Yamamoto, Yasutomo, Eguchi, Yoshiaki
• Primary Examiner(s): Chu; Gabriel L
• Application Number:
  US12/003,971
• Publication Number:
  US 20080109546A1
• Time in Patent Office: 648 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 714/6.32
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2094 Redundant storage or storage space G06F11/2056 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0617 in relation to availability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0635 by changing the path, e.g. traffic rerouting, path reconfiguration
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0647 Migration mechanisms
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]

Abstract

System availability is improved in a second storage system, connected to a first storage system, and having means for virtualizing devices within the first storage system as its own devices. When the virtual storage system or a storage management server detects a fault in the virtual storage system, the management server investigates the range affected by the fault, identifies a device for which measures must be taken, determines a transfer target device which accommodates the performance, reliability, and other attributes of the affected device, and issues a device transfer instruction for the virtual storage system. In the virtual storage system, the data of the device specified by the instruction within the virtual storage system is transferred to a device, specified by the management server, within the system itself, or to a device within another virtual storage system.

Claims

1. A storage system comprising:

at least one of physical devices;

at least one of external physical devices coupled to and separate from the at least one of physical devices;

a logical device management unit configured to allocate at least one of logical devices to the at least one of physical devices and the at least one of external physical devices, each logical device being provided to a computer, and to manage both the at least one of physical devices and the at least one of external physical devices based on device configuration information in association with the at least one of logical devices;

an input/output processing unit configured to convert, upon receipt of an input/output processing request for a logical device from the computer, the received input/output request into input/output processing for either the at least one of physical device or the at least one of external physical device based on the device configuration information, and to perform input/output processing according to the conversion result;

wherein, in response to a read request from the computer, the input/output processing device reads data off of the at least one of the logical devices, using parity data depending on the read request, and sends the data to the computer;

an anomaly detection unit configured to detect the occurrence, during input/output processing for an external physical device that is accessed by the input/output processing unit according to the conversion result, of an access fault or performance decline for the accessed external physical device; and

a notification unit configured to issue, if the access fault or performance decline failure is detected byte anomaly detection unit, notification of the detected failure and the external physical device in failure to a management server;

wherein the input/output processing unit executes data transfer or data recovery based on the detection result, and wherein the logical device management unit includes data transfer/recovery execution flag indicating at least three kinds of stains of “

data being transferred,”

“

data being recovered” and

“

off” and

updates the flag in response to the executing of data transfer or the data recovery.

2. The storage according to claim 1, further comprising an external physical device monitoring unit configured to determine the at least one of external physical devices to be accessed at predetermined intervals, and for executing input/output processing for the external physical devices.

3. the storage system according to claim 1, wherein the external physical device monitoring unit detects prognostication of a failure in the at least one of external physical devices, and wherein the notification unit issues notification of the prognostication to the management server.

4. The storage system according to claim 1, further comprising a data transfer unit configured to perform, upon receipt of an instruction from the management server for data transfer designating a transfer source and a transfer target, transfer of the data of the transfer source to the transfer target according to the instruction, wherein the logical device management unit updates the device configuration information when the transfer is completed.

5. the storage system according to claim 1, wherein the at least one of logical devices forms RAID group, and

wherein, if the anomaly detection unit detects an access fault of at least one of the logical devices where the computer issues the read request, the input/output processing unit is configured to identify a fault disk from the at least one of physical devices and the at least one of external physical devices which form a RAID group and to recover data from the at least one of physical devices and the at least one of external physical devices except for the fault disk.