Media and drive validation in a storage library

• US 9,368,147 B2
• Filed: 09/27/2013
• Issued: 06/14/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/27/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Kim, Hyoungjin, Amador, Alex, Russell, Stephanie Lynn
• Primary Examiner(s): OBERLY, ERIC T
• Application Number:
  US14/039,472
• Publication Number:
  US 20150092298A1
• Time in Patent Office: 991 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/00 Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0616 in relation to life time, e.g. increasing Mean Time Between Failures [MTBF]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0634 by changing the state or mode of one or more devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0637 Permissions
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0644 Management of space entities, e.g. partitions, extents, pools
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0686 Libraries, e.g. tape libraries, jukebox
• CPC Class Codes: G11B 15/6835 the cassettes being transferred to a fixed recorder or player using a moving carriage

Abstract

Systems and methods are described for validating storage media and/or media drives in a storage library using a hidden drive pool and a non-hidden media pool. For example, a storage library can be instructed to perform media/drive validation (MDV) on a selected pool of physical storage media using a selected pool of drive resources. Embodiments handle the pools so that, at least during performance of MDV, the drive resources in the drive pool are not visible to the host applications, but the storage media is still visible and can still be accessed by the host application. For example, the MDV can be performed in such a way that the host application cannot task a drive being used for validation, but the host application can perform operations on storage media in the media validation pool. Further, some embodiments operate in the context of storage library complex-wide validation pools.

Claims

1. A storage library system comprising:

a plurality of media slots, at least some having tangible storage media disposed therein;

a plurality of media drives that operate to receive the tangible storage medium for reading or writing;

a robotic assembly that operates to ferry the storage media between the media slots and the media drives; and

at least one processor that operates to communicate with the robotic assembly and at least one host application, and to perform steps comprising;

assigning at least one of the storage media to a target media pool of media/drive validation;

assigning at least one of the media drives to a target drive resource pool of the media/drive validation; and

executing the media/drive validation by;

instructing the robotic assembly to move the at least one storage medium to the at least one media drive; and

instructing the at least one media drive to execute the media/drive validation using the at least one storage medium,

wherein the assigning steps are performed in a manner that maintains visibility of the at least one storage medium by the at least one host application during the media/drive validation of the at least one storage medium and hides visibility of the at least one media drive from the at least one host application during the media/drive validation of the at least one media drive.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the at least one media drive operates to be logically accessible by the at least one host application via both a data path interface and a control path interface; and

the at least one processor operates to assign the at least one media drive in a manner that hides visibility from the at least one host application by removing logical accessibility by the at least one host application to the at least one media drive via the data path interface.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor operates to assign the at least one media drive in a manner that hides visibility from the at least one host application by:

assigning the at least one media drive to a library partition that the at least one host application does not have permission to access.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein, in response to receiving an access request for the at least one storage medium from the at least one host application while the at least one media drive is executing a media/drive validation, the at least one processor further operates to perform steps comprising:

interrupting execution of the media/drive validation in response to the access request; and

instructing the storage library to fulfill the access request using the at least one storage medium.

5. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a local console,

wherein the at least one processor is in communication with the local console and operates to perform the assigning steps in response to receiving a selection by a human user, via the local console, of at least some of the at least one storage medium and the at least one media drive.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is in communication with a computer-implemented media analytics application interface and operates to perform the assigning steps in response to receiving a selection by the computer-implemented media analytics application of at least some of the at least one storage medium and the at least one media drive.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a plurality of storage libraries, each defining a physically distinct environment for a respective portion of the plurality of media slots, a respective portion of the plurality of media drives, and at least one of a plurality of robotic assemblies, the plurality of storage libraries being logically interconnected as a library complex,

wherein the at least one processor operates to assign the at least one storage medium to the target media pool, wherein the at least one storage medium comprises at least one storage medium disposed in the physically distinct environment of one of the plurality of storage libraries and at least one storage medium disposed in the physically distinct environment of another of the plurality of storage libraries.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the at least one media drive is a physical media drive or a logical media drive slot.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the at least one storage medium is a tape media cartridge.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one host application is a backup application.

11. A method for validating storage media and/or media drives in a storage library, the library in communication with at least one host application and comprising a plurality of storage media and a plurality of media drives, the method comprising:

assigning at least one of the storage media from the library to a target media pool of a media/drive validation;

assigning at least one of the media drives from the library to a target drive resource pool of the media/drive validation; and

executing the media/drive validation by;

instructing the storage library to move the at least one storage medium to the at least one media drive; and

instructing the at least one media drive to execute the media/drive validation using the at least one storage medium,

wherein the assigning steps are performed in a manner that maintains visibility of the at least one storage medium by the at least one host application during the media/drive validation of the at least one storage medium and hides visibility of the at least one media drive from the at least one host application during the media/drive validation of the at least one media drive.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the at least one media drive operates to be logically accessible by the at least one host application via both a data path interface and a control path interface; and

assigning the at least one media drive in a manner that hides visibility from the at least one host application comprises removing logical accessibility by the at least one host application to the at least one media drive via the data path interface.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein:

removing logical accessibility by the at least one host application to the at least one media drive via the data path interface comprises waiting for a logical indication that data path connections have been physically disconnected from each of the at least one media drive prior to performing the instructing the storage library step.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein assigning the at least one media drive in a manner that hides visibility from the at least one host application comprises:

assigning the at least one media drive to a library partition that the at least one host application does not have permission to access.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving an access request for the at least one storage medium from the at least one host application while the at least one media drive is executing the media/drive validation;

interrupting execution of the media/drive validation in response to the access request; and

instructing the storage library to fulfill the access request using the at least one storage medium.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein instructing the storage library to move the at least one storage medium to the at least one media drive comprises:

instructing a robotic assembly of the storage library to pick the at least one storage medium from a physical library location; and

instructing the robotic assembly to place the at least one storage medium in a physical drive location corresponding to the at least one media drive.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein at least some of the at least one storage medium and the at least one media drive are previously selected by a human user via a console interface integrated with the storage library.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein at least some of the at least one storage medium and the at least one media drive are previously selected by a human user via an external application interface in communication with the storage library.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein at least some of the at least one storage medium and the at least one media drive are previously selected by a computer-implemented media analytics application interface in communication with the storage library.