Increase in deduplication efficiency for hierarchical storage system

• US 8,965,856 B2
• Filed: 08/29/2011
• Issued: 02/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/29/2011
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Kawaguchi, Tomohiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Spieler, William
• Application Number:
  US13/219,882
• Publication Number:
  US 20130054894A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,275 Days
• Field of Search: 707/693
• US Class Current: 707/693
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/174 Redundancy elimination performed by the file system management of the data involved in backup or backup restore using de-duplication of the data G06F11/14
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0641 De-duplication techniques
• 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 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

Exemplary embodiments provide improvement of deduplication efficiency for hierarchical storage systems. In one embodiment, a storage system comprises a storage controller; and a plurality of first volumes and a plurality of external volumes which are configured to be mounted to external devices. The storage controller controls to store related data which are derived from one of the plurality of first volumes in a first external volume of the plurality of external volumes. In another embodiment, the storage controller receives object data from a server and allocates the object data to the plurality of pool volumes. The plurality of pool volumes include a plurality of external volumes which are configured to be mounted to external devices. The storage controller controls to store the object data to the plurality of pool volumes based on object allocation information received from a backup server.

Claims

1. A storage subsystem coupled to a plurality of external storage subsystems each of which executes data deduplication, the storage subsystem comprising:

a storage controller including a processor and a memory;

a primary volume; and

a plurality of secondary volumes corresponding to the primary volume;

wherein the storage controller controls to allocate a storage region provided by a first external storage subsystem to a first address of a first secondary volume, and another storage region provided by the first external storage subsystem to the first address of a second secondary volume.

2. The storage subsystem according to claim 1,

wherein the storage controller controls to allocate a storage region provided by a second external storage subsystem to a second address of a second secondary volume, and another storage region provided by the second external storage subsystem to the second address of a second secondary volume.

3. The storage subsystem according to claim 2,

wherein the storage controller controls to allocate a storage region provided by a third external storage subsystem to a third address of the first secondary volume, and another storage region provided by the third external storage subsystem to the third address of the second secondary volume.

4. The storage subsystem according to claim 1,

wherein the secondary volume stores a snapshot of the primary volume.

5. The storage subsystem according to claim 1,

wherein the secondary volume establishes copy pair with the primary volume.

6. A system comprising:

a storage subsystem which includes a storage controller having a processor and a memory, a primary volume, and a plurality of secondary volumes corresponding to the primary volume; and

a plurality of external storage subsystems each of which executes data deduplication, the plurality of external storage subsystems being coupled to the storage subsystem;

wherein the storage controller controls to allocate a storage region provided by a first external storage subsystem to a first address of a first secondary volume, and another storage region provided by the first external storage subsystem to the first address of a second secondary volume.

7. The system according to claim 6,

wherein the storage controller controls to allocate a storage region provided by a second external storage subsystem to a second address of a second secondary volume, and another storage region provided by the second external storage subsystem to the second address of a second secondary volume.

8. The system according to claim 7,

wherein the storage controller controls to allocate a storage region provided by a third external storage subsystem to a third address of the first secondary volume, and another storage region provided by the third external storage subsystem to the third address of the second secondary volume.

9. The system according to claim 6,

wherein the secondary volume stores a snapshot of the primary volume.

10. The system according to claim 6,

wherein the secondary volume establishes copy pair with the primary volume.