Thick and thin data volume management

• US 9,053,002 B2
• Filed: 11/12/2013
• Issued: 06/09/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/12/2013
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: GlobalFoundries, Inc.
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Goodman, Daniel I., Nissan-Messing, Orit, Matosevich, Rivka M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Huson, Zachary K
• Application Number:
  US14/078,077
• Publication Number:
  US 20150134928A1
• Time in Patent Office: 574 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/02 Addressing or allocation; Relocation program address sequencing G06F9/00; arrangements for selecting an address in a digital store G11C8/00
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0652 Erasing, e.g. deleting, data cleaning, moving of data to a wastebasket
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0655 Vertical data movement, i.e. input-output transfer; data movement between one or more hosts and one or more storage devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0665 at area level, e.g. provisioning of virtual or logical volumes
• 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 3/0673 Single storage device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

Methods, apparatus and computer program products implement embodiments of the present invention that include configuring one or more storage devices as a plurality of physical storage units, each of the physical storage units having a storage granularity, and configuring, on the one or more storage devices, a thin provisioned storage pool having a physical number of the physical storage units and a logical number of logical storage units, the physical number being less than the logical number. Upon receiving a request to create a thick data volume having a requested number of the physical storage units, an available number of the physical storage units that are available in the thin provisioned pool can be identified. Upon determining that the requested number is less than the available number, the requested number of the physical storage units can be allocated, from the thin provisioned storage pool, to the thick data volume.

Claims

1. A storage system, comprising:

one or more storage devices; and

a processor arranged;

to configure the one or more storage devices as a plurality of physical storage units, each of the physical storage units having a storage granularity,

to configure, on the one or more storage devices, a thin provisioned storage pool having a physical number of the physical storage units and a logical number of logical storage units, the physical number being less than the logical number, and

upon receiving a request to create a thick data volume having a requested number of the physical storage units;

to identify an available number of the physical storage units that are available in the thin provisioned pool, and

upon determining that the requested number is less than the available number, to allocate, from the thin provisioned storage pool, the requested number of the physical storage units to the thick data volume.

2. The storage system according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to identify the available number of the physical storage units based on a number of data volumes in the thin provisioned storage pool and a respective amount of data stored in each of the data volumes.

3. The storage system according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to determine the logical number of the logical storage units that are available in the thin pool, and to allocate the requested number of the physical storage units from the thin pool upon determining that the requested number of the physical storage units is less than the logical number of the logical storage units that are available in the thin pool.

4. The storage system according to claim 3, wherein the processor is configured to fail the request upon determining that the requested number is greater than or equal to the number of the logical storage units that are available.

5. The storage system according to claim 3, wherein the processor is configured to determine the number of the logical storage units that are available in the thin provisioned storage pool based a number of data volumes in the thin provisioned storage pool and the storage granularity.

6. The storage system according to claim 3, wherein upon allocating the requested number of the physical storage units, the processor is configured to subtract the requested number from the available physical number and to subtract the requested number from the number of the logical storage units that are available.

7. The storage system according to claim 1, wherein the processor is configured to fail the request upon determining that the requested number is greater than or equal to the available number of the physical storage units.

8. A method, comprising:

configuring one or more storage devices as a plurality of physical storage units, each of the physical storage units having a storage granularity;

configuring, on the one or more storage devices, a thin provisioned storage pool having a physical number of the physical storage units and a logical number of logical storage units, the physical number being less than the logical number; and

upon receiving a request to create a thick data volume having a requested number of the physical storage units;

identifying an available number of the physical storage units that are available in the thin provisioned pool; and

upon determining that the requested number is less than the available number, allocating, from the thin provisioned storage pool, the requested number of the physical storage units to the thick data volume.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein identifying the available number of the physical storage units comprises identifying on a number of data volumes in the thin provisioned storage pool, and identifying a respective amount of data stored in each of the data volumes.

10. The method according to claim 8, and comprising determining the logical number of the logical storage units that are available in the thin pool, and allocating the requested number of the physical storage units from the thin pool upon determining that the requested number of the physical storage units is less than the logical number of the logical storage units that are available in the thin pool.

11. The method according to claim 10, and comprising failing the request upon determining that the requested number is greater than or equal to the number of the logical storage units that are available.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein determining the number of the logical storage units that are available in the thin provisioned storage pool comprises identifying a number of data volumes in the thin provisioned storage pool, and identifying the storage granularity.

13. The method according to claim 10, and comprising upon allocating the requested number of the physical storage units, subtracting the requested number from the available physical number and to subtract the requested number from the number of the logical storage units that are available.

14. The method according to claim 8, and comprising failing the request upon determining that the requested number is greater than or equal to the available number of the physical storage units.

15. A computer program product, the computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code arranged to configure one or more storage devices as a plurality of physical storage units, each of the physical storage units having a storage granularity;

computer readable program code arranged to configure, on the one or more storage devices, a thin provisioned storage pool having a physical number of the physical storage units and a logical number of logical storage units, the physical number being less than the logical number; and

upon receiving a request to create a thick data volume having a requested number of the physical storage units;

computer readable program code configured to identify an available number of the physical storage units that are available in the thin provisioned pool; and

computer readable program code configured upon determining that the requested number is less than the available number, to allocate, from the thin provisioned storage pool, the requested number of the physical storage units to the thick data volume.

16. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein the computer readable program code is configured to identify the available number of the physical storage units by identifying on a number of data volumes in the thin provisioned storage pool, and identifying a respective amount of data stored in each of the data volumes.

17. The computer program product according to claim 15, and comprising computer readable program code configured to determine the logical number of the logical storage units that are available in the thin pool, and to allocate the requested number of the physical storage units from the thin pool upon determining that the requested number of the physical storage units is less than the logical number of the logical storage units that are available in the thin pool.

18. The computer program product according to claim 17, and comprising computer readable program code configured to fail the request upon determining that the requested number is greater than or equal to the number of the logical storage units that are available.

19. The computer program product according to claim 17, and comprising computer readable program code configured upon allocating the requested number of the physical storage units, to subtract the requested number from the available physical number and to subtract the requested number from the number of the logical storage units that are available.

20. The computer program product according to claim 15, and comprising computer readable program code configured to fail the request upon determining that the requested number is greater than or equal to the available number of the physical storage units.