Fine grained tiered storage with thin provisioning

• US 8,775,368 B1
• Filed: 06/27/2007
• Issued: 07/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: EMC Corporation (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Burke, Barry A., Yochai, Yechiel
• Primary Examiner(s): LE, THU NGUYET T
• Application Number:
  US11/823,156
• Time in Patent Office: 2,568 Days
• Field of Search: 707204-206, 707/609, 707/661, 707/665, 707999204-999205
• US Class Current: 707/609
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/122 using management policies backup systems G06F11/1446; file migration policies for HSM systems G06F16/185
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/13 File access structures, e.g. distributed indices arrangements of input from, or output to, record carriers G06F3/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/182 Distributed file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/23 Updating

Abstract

A system for managing data includes providing at least one logical device having a table of information that maps sections of the logical device to sections of at least two storage areas. Characteristics of data associated with a one section of the logical device may be evaluated. The section of the data may moved between the at least two storage areas according to a policy and based on the characteristics of the data. The table of information is updated according to the movement of data between the at least two storage areas. Each of the at least two storage areas may correspond to a different storage tier, and each of the storage tiers may have different characteristic, such as speed of pools of storage devices within the tiers. A write target policy may be applied to store initial writes in a preferred location of the at least two storage areas.

Claims

1. A method for managing data, comprising:

providing a first logical device;

providing a second logical device having a table of information included in the second logical device that maps sections of the first logical device to sections of at least two storage areas that include physical storage space;

evaluating characteristics of data associated with at least one of the sections of the first logical device;

moving the data associated with the at least one of the sections of the first logical device between the at least two storage areas according to a policy and based on the characteristics of the data, wherein each of the at least two storage areas corresponds to a different storage tier and wherein each of the storage tiers has at least one different characteristic, wherein the table of information is stored independently of the data moved between the at least two storage areas, and wherein the table of information identifies sections of the second logical device for which no corresponding physical storage space of the at least two storage areas has yet been allocated, the table of information of the second logical device indicating a maximum amount of the physical storage space that is available on the at least two storage areas even though the corresponding physical storage space has not yet been allocated; and

updating the table of information according to the movement of data between the at least two storage areas.

2. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

in response to a request for accessing data associated with the first logical device, determining a location of the data on the at least two storage areas and accessing the data on the particular one of the storage areas using the table of information.

3. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

in response to a request for writing new data that is received at the second logical device, determining a preferred location for the new data on at least one of the at least two storage areas and writing the new data to at least one of the at least two storage areas, wherein the preferred location is determined according to a write target policy.

4. The method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

mirroring the same data on a plurality of the at least two storage areas.

5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein at least one of the storage tiers corresponds to an external storage device.

6. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the data includes a data block that is less than an entire file, dataset or database.

7. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the characteristics of the data include at least one of:

frequency of use of the data, a time of last use of the data, access patterns and inter-dependent accesses to other data, source/requestor information associated with the data, file name, file type and data type.

8. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the moving data between the at least two storage areas is performed automatically according to at least one of:

periodically, after a trigger event and initiated by a user or an administrator.

9. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the policy includes criteria for managing data according to at least one of:

frequency of use of the data, a time of last use of the data, a size of the data block, source/requestor information associated with the data, file name, file type and data type.

10. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein the second logical device includes a thin device and the first logical device includes a data device.

11. The method as recited in claim 10, further comprising:

providing another logical device that is served by a same pool of data devices as the second logical device.

12. A system including at least one processor that performs the steps recited in claim 1.

13. A computer readable storage medium storing executable code that performs the steps recited in claim 1.

14. A method for managing data, comprising:

providing a first logical device;

providing a second logical device having a table of information included in the second logical device that maps sections of the first logical device to sections of at least two storage areas that include physical storage space;

evaluating characteristics of data associated with at least one of the sections of the first logical device;

in response to a request for writing new data that is received at the second logical device, determining a preferred location for the new data on at least one of the at least two storage areas and writing the new data to at least one of the at least two storage areas, wherein the preferred location is determined according to a write target policy, wherein the table of information is stored independently of the new data written to the at least one of the at least two storage areas, and wherein the table of information identifies sections of the second logical device for which no corresponding physical storage space of the at least two storage areas has yet been allocated, the table of information of the second logical device indicating a maximum amount of the physical storage space that is available on the at least two storage areas even though the corresponding physical storage space has not yet been allocated; and

updating the table of information according to the writing of the data to the at least one of the at least two storage areas.

15. The method as recited in claim 14, further comprising:

in response to a request for accessing data associated with the first logical device, determining a location of the data on the at least two storage areas and accessing the data on the particular one of the storage areas using the table of information.

16. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the data includes a data block that is less than an entire file, dataset or database.

17. The method as recited in claim 14, wherein the policy includes criteria for managing data according to at least one of:

frequency of use of the data, a time of last use of the data, source/requestor information associated with the data, file name, file type and data type.

18. A system including at least one processor that performs the steps recited in claim 14.

19. A computer readable storage medium storing executable code that performs the steps recited in claim 14.

20. A computer storage device, comprising:

a plurality of interconnected directors, wherein at least some of the directors handle reading and writing data for the computer storage device;

a plurality of disk drives, coupled to at least some of the directors, that store data for the computer storage device; and

computer software, stored on a computer readable storage medium of at least one of the directors, having;

executable code that provides a first logical device;

executable code that provides a second logical device having a table of information included in the second logical device that maps sections of the first logical device to sections of at least two storage areas that include physical storage space;

executable code that evaluates characteristics of the data associated with at least one section of the first logical device;

executable code that moves the data associated with the at least one section of the first logical device between the at least two storage areas according to a policy and based on the characteristics of the data, wherein each of the at least two storage areas corresponds to a different storage tier and wherein each of the storage tiers has at least one different characteristic, wherein the table of information is stored independently of the data moved between the at least two storage areas, and wherein the table of information identifies sections of the second logical device for which no corresponding physical storage space of the at least two storage areas has yet been allocated, the table of information of the second logical device indicating a maximum amount of the physical storage space that is available on the at least two storage areas even though the corresponding physical storage space has not yet been allocated; and

executable code that updates the table of information according to the movement of data between the at least two storage areas.