Storage management method and storage management system

• US 8,209,495 B2
• Filed: 03/28/2011
• Issued: 06/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Yagi, Shuichi, Murakami, Tatsuya, Fujii, Kozue
• Primary Examiner(s): DOAN, DUC T
• Application Number:
  US13/073,370
• Publication Number:
  US 20110173390A1
• Time in Patent Office: 456 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 711/147
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0637 Permissions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/067 Distributed or networked storage systems, e.g. storage area networks [SAN], network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5016 the resource being the memory
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455

Abstract

There is provided a storage management system capable of utilizing division management with enhanced flexibility and of enhancing security of the entire system, by providing functions by program products in each division unit of a storage subsystem. The storage management system has a program-product management table stored in a shared memory in the storage subsystem and showing presence or absence of the program products, which provide management functions of respective resources to respective SLPRs. At the time of executing the management functions by the program products in the SLPRs of users in accordance with instructions from the users, the storage management system is referred to and execution of the management function having no program product is restricted.

Claims

1. A storage management method for a storage subsystem having resources including a plurality of channel adapters, a cache memory, and a plurality of physical disks, the storage management method comprising the steps of:

allocating logically partitioned resources in said storage subsystem to each of a plurality of division units;

storing, in a shared memory in said storage subsystem, a program-product management table showing a presence or absence of a right to execute a configuration changing function by a program product in each of said division units;

referring, in accordance with an instruction to execute said configuration changing function by said program product in a first division unit of said division units, to said program-product management table at a time of executing said configuration changing function by said program product in said first division unit;

allowing execution of said configuration changing function by said program product in said first division if a right to execute said configuration changing function by said program product is present in said first division unit; and

restricting execution of said configuration changing function by said program product in said first division unit if a right to execute said configuration changing function by said program product is absent in said first division unit.

2. A storage system comprising:

a plurality of ports which receives an input/output command from an information processing apparatus;

a plurality of disk devices storing data and configuring a plurality of RAID groups; and

a cache memory storing data corresponding to the input/output command for transferring data between the plurality of ports and the plurality of disk devices;

wherein the plurality of ports, the cache memory and the plurality of disk devices are logically partitioned to a plurality of resource groups including a first resource group to which a first administrator is assigned exclusively to manage configuration of the first resource group and a second resource group to which a second administrator is assigned exclusively to manage configuration of the second resource group,

wherein a first right to change configuration of the first resource group by executing a function of a first program product is assigned to the first administrator, and a second right to change configuration of the second resource group by executing a function of a second program product is assigned to a second administrator, and

wherein in response to an instruction to change configuration of the first resource group or the second resource group, allowing to change configuration if a right to change configuration is assigned to a requesting entity and restricting to change configuration if the right to change configuration is not assigned to the requesting entity.

3. The storage system according to claim 2, wherein a third right to change configuration of the first resource group by executing the function of the second program product is not assigned to the first administrator, and a fourth right to change configuration of the second resource group by executing the function of the first program product is not assigned to the second administrator.

4. The storage system according to claim 3, wherein a first request to change configuration of the first resource group by executing the first program product from the first administrator is allowed, and a second request to change configuration of the first resource group by executing the second program product from the first administrator is restricted.

5. The storage system according to claim 3, wherein a third request to change configuration of the second resource group by executing the second program product from the second administrator is allowed, and a fourth request to change configuration of the second resource group by executing the first program product from the second administrator is restricted.

6. The storage system according to claim 2, wherein a first request from the first administrator to change configuration of the first resource group by executing function of a first program product whose execution right is not set to the first administrator is restricted.

7. The storage system according to claim 6, wherein a second request from the first administrator to change configuration of the first resource group by executing function of a second program product whose execution right is set to the first administrator is allowed.

8. The storage system according to claim 2, wherein information showing a presence or absence of execution rights of a plurality program products including the first program product and the second program product in the first partition by the first administrator and presence or absence of execution rights of the plurality program products in the second partition by the second administrator is stored in a program product management table.

9. The storage system according to claim 2, wherein function of the first program product is a configuration change of the plurality of ports or a configuration change of the plurality of disk devices.

10. The storage system according to claim 2, further comprising:

a shared memory which the plurality of resource groups can access and storing a configuration information table showing a configuration of each of the plurality of resource groups.