SAS storage virtualization controller, subsystem and system using the same, and method therefor

• US 8,301,810 B2
• Filed: 10/11/2005
• Issued: 10/30/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/21/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Infortrend Technology Incorporated (Infortrend Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Infortrend Technology Incorporated (Infortrend Corporation)
• Inventors: Schnapp, Michael Gordon, Pang, Ching-Te, Sue, Shiann-Wen, Lee, Cheng-Yu
• Primary Examiner(s): Unelus, Ernest
• Application Number:
  US11/246,309
• Publication Number:
  US 20060136666A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,576 Days
• Field of Search: 710/74, 710/72, 711/114, 711/162
• US Class Current: 710/74
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/1469 Backup restoration techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/201 between storage system components
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2089 Redundant storage control functionality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0607 by facilitating the process of upgrading existing storage systems, e.g. for improving compatibility between host and storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/061 Improving I/O performance
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0611 in relation to response time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0613 in relation to throughput
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0659 Command handling arrangements, e.g. command buffers, queues, command scheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0661 Format or protocol conversion arrangements
• 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

Abstract

A storage virtualization computer system. The storage virtualization computer system comprises a host entity for issuing an IO request, a SAS storage virtualization controller coupled to the host entity for executing IO operations in response to the IO request, and at least one physical storage device, each coupled to the storage virtualization controller through a SAS interconnect, for providing data storage space to the storage virtualization computer system through the SAS storage virtualization controller.

Claims

1. A storage virtualization computer system comprising:

a host entity for issuing IO requests;

an external storage virtualization controller coupled to said host entity for executing IO operations in response to said IO requests; and

a group of physical storage devices (PSDs), each coupled to the storage virtualization controller through a SAS interconnect, for providing data storage space to the storage virtualization computer system through the storage virtualization controller in which each of the PSDs is a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD);

wherein said external storage virtualization controller comprises;

a central processing circuitry (CPC) for performing IO operations in response to said IO requests of said host entity;

at least one IO device interconnect controller coupled to said central processing circuitry;

at least one host-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to said host entity; and

at least one SAS device-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to one of said at least one physical storage device;

wherein said storage virtualization controller is configured to define at least one virtualized logical media unit consisting of sections of said group of PSDs, and said storage virtualization controller is configured for accommodating said group of PSDs having a SAS PSD in said group of PSDs or a SATA PSD in said group of PSDs connected to the same SAS interconnect;

wherein said external storage virtualization controller is configured to define the at least one virtualized logical media unit (LMU) consisting of the sections of said group of PSDs, and is configured to provide a mapping that maps combination of the sections of said group of PSDs to the at least one virtualized LMU visible to the host entity, and the at least one virtualized LMU is contiguously addressable by the host entity to which the at least one virtualized LMU is made available;

wherein the IO requests are parsed to determine what operation is to be performed and on which section of the virtualized LMU the operation is to be performed; and

wherein when the operation consists only of internally-emulated, asynchronous, and synchronous device sub-operations, then the SVC executes the associated sub-operations including transferring any associated data to/from the host entity and then, when there is a failed operation, responding to the host entity with a status report that indicates the reason for the failed operation.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said group of PSDs comprises at least one of the following PSDs:

a SAS PSD, a SATA PSD, and a PATA PSD.

3. The computer system of claim 1, wherein a new PSD is attached to said storage virtualization controller when said storage virtualization controller is on-line.

4. The storage virtualization computer system of claim 1, wherein one of said host-side IO device interconnect port and one of said SAS device-side IO device interconnect port are provided in a same IO device interconnect controller.

5. The storage virtualization computer system of claim 1, wherein said at least one IO device interconnect controller comprises a plurality of IO device interconnect controllers;

wherein one of said host-side IO device interconnect port and one of said SAS device-side IO device interconnect port are provided in different IO device interconnect controllers.

6. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said storage virtualization controller comprises at least one host-side IO device interconnect port each for coupling to a host-side IO device interconnect.

7. The computer system of claim 6, wherein said storage virtualization controller is configured to present redundantly said at least one virtualized logical media unit on at least two of said at least one host-side IO device interconnect port.

8. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said host-side IO device interconnect port comprises at least one of the following port types:

Fibre Channel supporting point-to-point connectivity in target mode, Fibre Channel supporting private loop connectivity in target mode, Fibre Channel supporting public loop connectivity in target mode, parallel SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) operating in target mode, ethernet supporting the iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) protocol operating in target mode SAS operating in target mode, Serial ATA operating in target mode, IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B, and USB/USB2.0.

45. The computer system of claim 1, wherein said group of PSDs are received in a plurality of enclosures.

46. The storage virtualization computer system of claim 1, wherein the SAS PSD in said group of PSDs and the SATA PSD in said group of PSDs are not necessarily connected at the same time.

9. A storage virtualization subsystem for providing data storage space, comprising:

an external storage virtualization controller for connecting to a host entity and executing IO operations in response to IO requests issued from said host entity; and

a group of physical storage devices (PSDs), each coupled to the storage virtualization controller through a SAS interconnect, for providing data storage space to the host entity through the storage virtualization controller in which each of the PSDs is a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD);

wherein said external storage virtualization controller comprises;

a central processing circuitry (CPC) for performing IO operations in response to said IO requests of said host entity;

at least one IO device interconnect controller coupled to said central processing circuitry;

at least one host-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to said host entity; and

at least one SAS device-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to said group of PSDs; and

wherein said external storage virtualization controller is configured to define at least one virtualized logical media unit consisting of said group of PSDs, and said storage virtualization controller is configured for accommodating said group of PSDs having a SAS PSD in said group of PSDs or a SATA PSD in said group of PSDs connected to the same SAS interconnect;

wherein said storage virtualization controller is configured to define the at least one virtualized logical media unit (LMU) consisting of the sections of said group of PSDs, and is configured to provide a mapping that maps combination of the sections of said group of PSDs to the at least one virtualized LMU visible to the host entity, and the at least one virtualized LMU is contiguously addressable by the host entity to which the at least one virtualized LMU is made available;

wherein the IO requests are parsed to determine what operation is to be performed and on which section of the virtualized LMU the operation is to be performed; and

wherein when the operation consists only of internally-emulated, asynchronous, and synchronous device sub-operations, then the SVC executes the associated sub-operations including transferring any associated data to/from the host entity and then, when there is a failed operation, responding to the host entity with a status report that indicates the reason for the failed operation.

11. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9 wherein said at least one IO device interconnect controller comprises a plurality of IO device interconnect controller;

wherein one of said host-side IO device interconnect port and one of said SAS device-side IO device interconnect port are provided in different IO device interconnect controllers.

12. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9, wherein said group of PSDs comprises at least one of the following PSDs:

a SAS PSD, a SATA PSD, and a PATA PSD.

13. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9, wherein said storage virtualization controller comprises at least one host-side IO device interconnect port each for coupling to a host-side IO device interconnect.

14. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 13, wherein said storage virtualization controller is configured to present redundantly said at least one virtualized logical media unit on at least two of said at least one host-side IO device interconnect port.

15. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9, wherein a new PSD is attached to said storage virtualization controller when said storage virtualization controller is on-line.

16. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9, wherein said storage virtualization controller and the group of PSDs are in a same enclosure, and said storage virtualization controller further comprises at least one expansion port for accommodating an additional set of a plurality of PSDs.

17. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9, wherein said storage virtualization controller further comprises at least one multiple-device device-side expansion port for accommodating an additional set of a plurality of PSDs.

18. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9, wherein said storage virtualization controller and the group of PSDs are in a same enclosure, and said storage virtualization controller further comprises at least one expansion port for accommodating an additional set of a plurality of PSDs through an expanding circuit.

19. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9, wherein at least one said host-side IO device interconnect port comprises at least one of the following port types:

Fibre Channel supporting point-to-point connectivity in target mode, Fibre Channel supporting private loop connectivity in target mode, Fibre Channel supporting public loop connectivity in target mode, parallel SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) operating in target mode, ethernet supporting the iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) protocol operating in target mode SAS operating in target mode, Serial ATA operating in target mode, IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B, and USB/USB2.0.

20. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9 further comprising an enclosure management services (EMS) mechanism for managing and monitoring devices belonging to the storage virtualization subsystem.

21. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 20, wherein the EMS mechanism is implemented using an intelligent circuitry, that includes a CPU and runs a software program to manage and monitor devices belonging to the storage virtualization subsystem, and said enclosure management services mechanism manages and monitors at least one of the following devices belonging to the storage virtualization subsystem:

power supplies, fans, temperature sensors, voltages, uninterruptible power supplies, batteries, LEDs, audible alarms, PSD canister locks, door locks.

22. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 20, wherein said enclosure management services mechanism is configured to support one of the following configurations:

direct-connect EMS configuration and device-forwarded EMS configuration.

23. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 20, wherein said enclosure management services mechanism is configured to support one of the following protocols:

SES (Small Computer System Interface Enclosure Services) enclosure management services protocol and SAF-TE (Small Computer System Interface Accessed Fault Tolerant Enclosures) enclosure management services protocol.

24. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 20, wherein said EMS mechanism further comprises one of the following circuits to communicate with said storage virtualization controller:

I2C latches, status-monitoring circuitry.

47. The storage virtualization subsystem of claim 9, wherein the SAS PSD in said group of PSDs and the SATA PSD in said group of PSDs are not necessarily connected at the same time.

10. The storage virtualization subsystem of claiml 9, wherein one of said host-side IO device interconnect port and one of said SAS device-side IO device interconnect port are provided in a same IO device interconnect controller.

25. An external storage virtualization controller, comprising:

a central processing circuitry for performing IO operations in response to IO requests from a host entity;

at least one IO device interconnect controller coupled to said central processing circuitry;

at least one host-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to said host entity; and

at least one SAS device-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to and performing serial-signal transmission with a group of physical storage devices (PSDs) in which each of the PSDs is a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD); and

wherein said storage virtualization controller is configured to define at least one virtualized logical media unit consisting of sections of said group of PSDs, and the storage virtualization controller is configured for accommodating said group of PSDs having a SAS PSD in said group of PSDs or a SATA PSD in said group of PSDs connected to the same SAS interconnect;

wherein said external storage virtualization controller is configured to define the at least one virtualized logical media unit (LMU) consisting of the sections of said group of PSDs, and is configured to provide a mapping that maps combination of the sections of said group of PSDs to the at least one virtualized LMU visible to the host entity, and the at least one virtualized LMU is contiguously addressable by the host entity to which the at least one virtualized LMU is made available;

wherein the IO requests are parsed to determine what operation is to be performed and on which section of the virtualized LMU the operation is to be performed; and

wherein when the operation consists only of internally-emulated, asynchronous, and synchronous device sub-operations, then the SVC executes the associated sub-operations including transferring any associated data to/from the host entity and then, when there is a failed operation, responding to the host entity with a status report that indicates the reason for the failed operation.

26. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein one of said host-side IO device interconnect port and one of said SAS device-side IO device interconnect port are provided in a same IO device interconnect controller.

27. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein said at least one IO device interconnect controller comprises a plurality of IO device interconnect controllers;

wherein one of said host-side IO device interconnect port and one of said SAS device-side IO device interconnect port are provided in different IO device interconnect controllers.

28. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein said device-side IO device interconnect controller further comprises a PCl/PCI-X interface for connecting to the central processing circuit.

29. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein said device-side IO device interconnect controller further comprises a PCI Express interface for connecting to the central processing circuit.

30. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein said storage virtualization controller comprises at least one host-side IO device interconnect port each for coupling to a host-side IO device interconnect.

31. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein said storage virtualization controller is configured for presenting redundantly said at least one virtualized logical media unit on at least two of said at least one host-side IO device interconnect port.

32. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein said storage virtualization controller and the group of PSDs are in a same enclosure, and said storage virtualization controller further comprising at least one expansion port for accommodating a second set of a plurality of PSDs.

33. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25 further comprising at least one multiple-device device-side expansion port for accommodating a second set of a plurality of PSDs.

34. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein said storage virtualization controller and the group of PSDs are in a same enclosure, and said storage virtualization controller comprising at least one expansion port for accommodating a second set of a plurality of PSDs through an expanding circuit.

35. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25, wherein at least one said host-side IO device interconnect port comprises at least one of the following port types:

Fibre Channel supporting point-to-point connectivity in target mode, Fibre Channel supporting private loop connectivity in target mode, Fibre Channel supporting public loop connectivity in target mode, parallel SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) operating in target mode, ethernet supporting the iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) protocol operating in target mode SAS operating in target mode, Serial ATA operating in target mode, IEEE1394A/IEEE1394B, and USB/USB2.0.

36. The external storage virtualization controller of claim 25 further comprising an enclosure management services (EMS) mechanism, and the EMS mechanism is implemented using an intelligent circuitry, that includes a CPU and runs a software program to manage and monitor devices belonging to the storage virtualization subsystem.

37. The storage virtualization controller of claim 36, wherein said enclosure management services mechanism is configured to support one of the following configurations:

direct-connect EMS configuration and device-forwarded EMS configuration.

38. The storage virtualization controller of claim 36, wherein said storage virtualization controller is configured to support one of the following protocols:

SES (Small Computer System Interface Enclosure Services) enclosure management services protocol and SAF-TE (Small Computer System Interface Accessed Fault Tolerant Enclosures) enclosure management services protocol.

39. A method for performing storage virtualization in a computer system with an external storage virtualization controller of the computer system, wherein said external storage virtualization controller comprises:

a central processing circuitry (CPC) for performing IO operations in response to said IO requests of said host entity;

at least one IO device interconnect controller coupled to said central processing circuitry;

at least one host-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to said host entity; and

at least one SAS device-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to a group of physical storage devices (PSDs), the method comprising;

receiving, by one of said host-side IO device interconnect port, an IO request from a host entity of the computer system;

parsing, by said CPC, the IO request to decide at least one IO operation to perform in response to said IO request; and

performing, by said CPC, at least one IO operation to access, by one of said SAS device-side IO device interconnect port, said group of PSDs of the computer system in serial-signal transmission complying with SAS protocol;

said external storage virtualization controller is configured to define at least one virtualized logical media unit (LMU) consisting of sections of said group of PSDs, and is configured to provide a mapping that maps combination of the sections of said group of PSDs to the at least one virtualized LMU visible to the host entity, and the at least one virtualized LMU is contiguously addressable by the host entity to which the at least one virtualized LMU is made available;

wherein said external storage virtualization controller is configured to define at least one virtualized logical media unit consisting of sections of said group of PSDs in which each of the PSDs is a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD), and the storage virtualization controller is configured for accommodating said group of PSDs having a SAS PSD in said group of PSDs or a SATA PSD in said group of PSDs connected to the same SAS interconnect;

wherein the IO requests are parsed to determine what operation is to be performed and on which section of the virtualized LMU the operation is to be performed; and

wherein when the operation consists only of internally-emulated, asynchronous, and synchronous device sub-operations, then the SVC executes the associated sub-operations including transferring any associated data to/from the host entity and then, when there is a failed operation, responding to the host entity with a status report that indicates the reason for the failed operation.

40. The method of claim 39 further comprising the step of providing an enclosure management services (EMS) mechanism, and the EMS mechanism is implemented using an intelligent circuitry, that includes a CPU and runs a software program to manage and monitor devices belonging to the storage virtualization subsystem.

41. The method of claim 40 further comprising the step of executing said enclosure management services mechanism when said mechanism is configured to support one of the following configurations:

direct-connect EMS configuration and device-forwarded EMS configuration.

42. The method of claim 39, wherein said group of PSDs comprises at least one of the following PSDs:

a SAS PSD, a SATA PSD, and a PATA PSD.

43. The method of claim 39, wherein the step of performing said at least one IO operation comprises issuing at least one device-side IO request to a SAS device-side IO device interconnect controller provided in the SVC and re-formatting said device-side IO request and accompanying IO data by said SAS device-side IO device interconnect controller into at least one data packet complying with SAS protocol for transmission.

48. The method of claim 39, wherein the SAS PSD in said group of PSDs and the SATA PSD in said group of PSDs are not necessarily connected at the same time.

44. A storage virtualization computer system comprising:

a host entity for issuing IO requests;

an external storage virtualization controller coupled to said host entity for executing IO operations in response to said IO requests; and

a group of physical storage devices (PSDs), each coupled to the storage virtualization controller through a SAS interconnect, for providing data storage space to the storage virtualization computer system through the storage virtualization controller in which each of the PSDs is a hard disk drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD);

wherein said external storage virtualization controller comprises;

a central processing circuitry (CPC) for performing IO operations in response to said IO requests of said host entity;

at least one IO device interconnect controller coupled to said central processing circuitry;

at least one host-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to said host entity; and

at least one SAS device-side IO device interconnect port provided in one of said at least one IO device interconnect controller for coupling to one of said at least one physical storage device;

wherein said storage virtualization controller is configured to define at least one virtualized logical media unit consisting of sections of said group of PSDs, and the storage virtualization controller is configured for accommodating said group of PSDs having a SAS PSD in said group of PSDs or a SATA PSD in said group of PSDs connected to the same SAS interconnect;

wherein said external storage virtualization controller is configured to define the at least one virtualized logical media unit (LMU) consisting of the sections of said group of PSDs, and is configured to provide a mapping that maps combination of the sections of said group of PSDs to the at least one virtualized LMU visible to the host entity, and the at least one virtualized LMU is contiguously addressable by the host entity to which the at least one virtualized LMU is made available;

wherein the IO requests are parsed to determine what operation is to be performed and on which section of the virtualized LMU the operation is to be performed; and

wherein when the operation consists only of internally-emulated, asynchronous, and synchronous device sub-operations, then the SVC executes the associated sub-operations including transferring any associated data to/from the host entity and then, when there is a failed operation, responding to the host entity with a status report that indicates the reason for the failed operation.

49. The storage virtualization computer system of claim 44, wherein the SAS PSD in said group of PSDs and the SATA PSD in said group of PSDs are not necessarily connected at the same time.