Modeling computer applications and storage used thereby

• US 8,224,630 B2
• Filed: 07/09/2009
• Issued: 07/17/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Hitachi Vantara, LLC (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (Hitachi, Ltd.)
• Inventors: Das, Ashutosh, Sahu, Sanjeev, Pelts, Greg L
• Primary Examiner(s): PHAN, THAI Q
• Application Number:
  US12/500,189
• Publication Number:
  US 20110010161A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,104 Days
• Field of Search: 703/2, 703/14, 703/22, 709/224, 709/239, 345/156
• US Class Current: 703/2
• 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 11/0757 by exceeding a time limit, i.e. time-out, e.g. watchdogs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/076 by exceeding a count or rate limit, e.g. word- or bit count limit
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0766 Error or fault reporting or storing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3442 for planning or managing the needed capacity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3485 for I/O devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/815 Virtual
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/87 Monitoring of transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/885 Monitoring specific for caches

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention provide a technique to model applications and storage used thereby. An aspect of the present invention is directed to a method for managing a computer system which includes at least one host computer and at least one storage system which are connected via a network, the at least one host computer having an application running thereon. The method comprises modeling an application running on a host of a computer system as an application object, which includes associating storage utilized by the application with the application object; tracking operation of the storage associated with the application object as a service being delivered by the storage to the application; and presenting result on the service being delivered by the storage to the application based on tracking the operation of the storage.

Claims

1. A method for managing a computer system which includes at least one host computer and at least one storage system which are connected via a network, the at least one host computer having an application running thereon, the method comprising:

modeling an application running on a host of a computer system as an application object, which includes associating storage utilized by the application with the application object;

tracking operation of the storage associated with the application object as a service being delivered by the storage to the application; and

presenting result on the service being delivered by the storage to the application based on tracking the operation of the storage;

wherein presenting result on the service being delivered by the storage comprises at least one of reporting on storage capacity of the storage used by the application, reporting on storage usage trend of the storage used by the application, reporting on a type of the storage used by the application, reporting on application storage service level objective (SLO) fulfillment of the application, reporting on application SLO fulfillment trend of the application, correlating degradation storage performance of the storage to performance of the application, correlating storage malfunction of the storage to effect of the storage malfunction on up/down-time of the application, predicting risk of application performance degradation/downtime of the application based on status of the storage currently assigned to the application, or assessing compliance of the application to preset standards in areas selected from the group consisting of multipathing, backup, and replication.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein modeling an application as an application object comprises assigning and mapping the storage to the application.

3. The method of claim 2,

wherein the storage is assigned manually by a user or imported from storage groups of a device manager in the computer system.

4. The method of claim 1,

wherein tracking the operation of the storage comprises at least one of monitoring which storage volume is used by the application, monitoring how much storage capacity is used by the application, monitoring storage usage trend of the storage used by the application, monitoring application storage service level objective (SLO) fulfillment, or monitoring application SLO fulfillment trend.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if a configuration change occurs in the computer system, automatically updating the application object by mapping updated storage to the application.

6. A computer system including at least one host computer and at least one storage system which are connected with a network, the at least one host computer having an application running thereon, the computer system further including an application modeling and tracking module which:

models an application running on a host of a computer system as an application object, which includes associating storage utilized by the application with the application object;

tracks operation of the storage associated with the application object as a service being delivered by the storage to the application; and

presents result on the service being delivered by the storage to the application based on tracking the operation of the storage;

wherein presenting result on the service being delivered by the storage comprises at least one of reporting on storage capacity of the storage used by the application, reporting on storage usage trend of the storage used by the application, reporting on a type of the storage used by the application, reporting on application storage service level objective (SLO) fulfillment of the application, reporting on application SLO fulfillment trend of the application, correlating degradation storage performance of the storage to performance of the application, correlating storage malfunction of the storage to effect of the storage malfunction on up/down-time of the application, predicting risk of application performance degradation/downtime of the application based on status of the storage currently assigned to the application, or assessing compliance of the application to preset standards in areas selected from the group consisting of multipathing, backup, and replication.

7. The computer system of claim 6,

wherein modeling an application as an application object comprises assigning and mapping the storage to the application.

8. The computer system of claim 7,

wherein the storage is assigned manually by a user or imported from storage groups of a device manager in the computer system.

9. The computer system of claim 6,

wherein tracking the operation of the storage comprises at least one of monitoring which storage volume is used by the application, monitoring how much storage capacity is used by the application, monitoring storage usage trend of the storage used by the application, monitoring application storage service level objective (SLO) fulfillment, or monitoring application SLO fulfillment trend.

10. The computer system of claim 6, wherein the application modeling and tracking module:

if a configuration change occurs in the computer system, automatically updates the application object by mapping updated storage to the application.

11. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a plurality of instructions for controlling a data processor to manage a computer system having an application running on a host computer, the plurality of instructions comprising:

instructions that cause the data processor to model an application running on a host of a computer system as an application object, which includes associating storage utilized by the application with the application object;

instructions that cause the data processor to track operation of the storage associated with the application object as a service being delivered by the storage to the application; and

instructions that cause the data processor to present result on the service being delivered by the storage to the application based on tracking the operation of the storage;

wherein presenting result on the service being delivered by the storage comprises at least one of reporting on storage capacity of the storage used by the application, reporting on storage usage trend of the storage used by the application, reporting on a type of the storage used by the application, reporting on application storage service level objective (SLO) fulfillment of the application, reporting on application SLO fulfillment trend of the application, correlating degradation storage performance of the storage to performance of the application, correlating storage malfunction of the storage to effect of the storage malfunction on up/down-time of the application, predicting risk of application performance degradation/downtime of the application based on status of the storage currently assigned to the application, or assessing compliance of the application to preset standards in areas selected from the group consisting of multipathing, backup, and replication.

12. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11,

wherein modeling an application as an application object comprises assigning and mapping the storage to the application.

13. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 12,

wherein the storage is assigned manually by a user or imported from storage groups of a device manager in the computer system.

14. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11,

wherein tracking the operation of the storage comprises at least one of monitoring which storage volume is used by the application, monitoring how much storage capacity is used by the application, monitoring storage usage trend of the storage used by the application, monitoring application storage service level objective (SLO) fulfillment, or monitoring application SLO fulfillment trend.

15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the plurality of instructions further comprise:

instructions that cause the data processor, if a configuration change occurs in the computer system, to update automatically the application object by mapping updated storage to the application.