System and method for failover using virtual ports in clustered systems

• US 7,979,517 B1
• Filed: 12/15/2008
• Issued: 07/12/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 09/26/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Original Assignee: NetApp, Inc.
• Inventors: Lee, Herman, Wang, Fang
• Primary Examiner(s): Lin; Kenny S
• Assistant Examiner(s): Khajuria; Shripal K
• Application Number:
  US12/335,280
• Time in Patent Office: 939 Days
• Field of Search: 709/221
• US Class Current: 709/221
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/20 using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2092 Techniques of failing over between control units
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0617 in relation to availability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0664 at device level, e.g. emulation of a storage device or system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 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]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06

Abstract

A system and method for utilizing virtual ports associated with a physical port in a Fiber Channel adapter for use in a clustered storage system is disclosed. A plurality of virtual ports are created and associated with a physical port on a storage system. One of the virtual ports is utilized as a standby port to be used to assume the identity of a port associated with a failed storage system in the cluster. In the event of a failover operation, the standby port is activated and assumes the identity of the failed storage systems port. Data access requests previously directed to the failed storage system are received by the activated virtual port and processed by the surviving storage system.

Claims

1. A method for failover in a storage network, comprising:

detecting a failure of a first server;

activating a secondary virtual port associated with a physical port of a second server, the physical port configured to support two or more virtual ports that share the physical port on the second server;

configuring the secondary virtual port with an identity of a primary virtual port from the first server, wherein configuring the secondary virtual port with the identity of the primary virtual port comprises setting a node name of the secondary virtual port to a node name of the primary virtual port that is unique to the first server; and

servicing one or more storage devices operatively connected to the first server and second server through the node name of the secondary virtual port.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein configuring the secondary virtual port further with the identity of the primary virtual port further comprises setting a port name of the secondary virtual port to a port name of the primary virtual port.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the failure is to a physical port on the first server.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the failure is to the primary virtual port on the first server.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the failure is in response to initiating a failover procedure on the first server.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein detecting the failure in the first server further comprises:

detecting a lack of a heartbeat signal from the first server at the second server.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the primary virtual port has been recovered;

terminating service requests to the secondary virtual port;

deactivating the secondary virtual port; and

servicing the one or more storage devices through the primary virtual port.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage network comprises a Fibre Channel (FC) network and wherein the node name comprises a FC World Wide Node Name.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising processing, by the second server, data access requests directed to the secondary virtual port.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising processing, by the second server, data access requests directed to a third virtual port, the third virtual port associated with the physical port on the second server.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the secondary virtual port is in standby mode prior to the failure of the first server.

12. A non-transitory computer readable medium containing executable program instructions for execution by a processor, comprising:

program instructions that detect a failure of a first server;

program instructions that activate a secondary virtual port associated with a physical port of a second server, the physical port configured to support two or more virtual ports that share the same physical port on the second server;

program instructions that configure the secondary virtual port with an identity of a primary virtual port from the first server, wherein the program instructions that configure the secondary virtual port with the identity of the primary virtual port comprise program instructions that set a node name of the secondary virtual port to a node name of the primary virtual port that is unique to the first server; and

program instructions that service one or more storage devices operatively connected to the first server and the second server through the node name of the secondary virtual port.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the program instructions that configure the secondary virtual port with the identity of the primary virtual port of further comprise program instructions that set a port name of the secondary virtual port to a port name of the primary virtual port.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the failure is to a physical port on the first server.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the failure is to the primary virtual port on the first server.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 12, wherein the node name comprises a FC World Wide Node Name.

17. A storage system, comprising

a first server comprising a physical port configured to communicate with a client over a network;

a second server configured to operatively connect to the network and further configured with a plurality of virtual ports associated with a physical port on the second server, wherein the plurality of virtual ports comprises a primary virtual port and a secondary virtual port; and

a processor on the second server configured to execute a storage operating system, the storage operating system configured to;

detect a failure in the first server, in response to detecting the failure, activate the secondary virtual port, configure the secondary virtual port with an identity of a primary virtual port of the first server by setting a node name of the secondary virtual port to a node name of the primary virtual port that is unique to the first server, and service one or more storage devices operatively connected to the first server and the second server through the node name of the secondary virtual port.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the storage operating system is further configured to set a port name of the secondary virtual port to a port name of the primary virtual port.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the failure is to a physical port on the first server.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the failure is to the primary virtual port on the first server.