Proactively providing corrective measures for storage arrays

• US 9,384,082 B1
• Filed: 10/23/2015
• Issued: 07/05/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/23/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Inventors: Lee, Patrick, Perneti, Vinay, Zhuravlev, Sergey
• Primary Examiner(s): Wilson, Yolanda L
• Application Number:
  US14/920,994
• Time in Patent Office: 256 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/008 Reliability or availability analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0727 in a storage system, e.g. in a DASD or network based storage system drivers for digital recording or reproducing units G06F3/06; circuits for error detection or correction within digital recording or reproducing units G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0751 Error or fault detection not based on redundancy power supply failures G06F1/30; network fault management H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0793 Remedial or corrective actions recovery from an exception in an instruction pipeline G06F9/3861; by retry G06F11/1402; for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity H04L69/40
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3034 where the computing system component is a storage system, e.g. DASD based or network based digital input from or digital output to record carriers G06F3/06; digital recording or reproducing G11B20/18; for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS], H04L67/1097
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/805 Real-time
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0614 Improving the reliability of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0653 Monitoring storage devices or systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0683 Plurality of storage devices

Abstract

Proactively providing corrective measures for storage arrays includes: receiving data from a storage array, the data including one or more events; detecting, in dependence upon a problem signature, one or more events from the data indicative of a particular problem, where the problem signature comprises a specification of a pattern of events indicative of the particular problem experienced by at least one other storage array; determining whether the particular problem violates an operational policy of the storage array, the operational policy specifying at least one requirement for an operational metric of the storage array; and if the particular problem violates the operational policy of the storage array, deploying automatically without user intervention one or more corrective measures to prevent the storage array from experiencing the particular problem.

Claims

1. A method of proactively providing corrective measures for storage arrays, the method comprising:

detecting, in dependence upon a problem signature, one or more events from data of a storage array that are indicative of a particular problem, wherein the problem signature comprises a specification of a pattern of events indicative of the particular problem experienced by at least one other storage array;

determining that the particular problem violates an operational policy of the storage array, the operational policy specifying at least one requirement for an operational metric of the storage array; and

deploying one or more corrective measures to prevent the storage array from experiencing the particular problem.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for high availability.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for failover availability.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum data reduction ratio.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum input/output latency.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum replication throughput.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for data retention.

8. An apparatus for proactively providing corrective measures for storage arrays, the apparatus comprising a computer processor, a computer memory operatively coupled to the computer processor, the computer memory having disposed within it computer program instructions that, when executed by the computer processor, cause the apparatus to carry out the steps of:

detecting, in dependence upon a problem signature, one or more events from data of a storage array that are indicative of a particular problem, wherein the problem signature comprises a specification of a pattern of events indicative of the particular problem experienced by at least one other storage array;

determining that the particular problem violates an operational policy of the storage array, the operational policy specifying at least one requirement for an operational metric of the storage array; and

deploying one or more corrective measures to prevent the storage array from experiencing the particular problem.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for high availability.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for failover availability.

11. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum data reduction ratio.

12. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum input/output latency.

13. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum replication throughput.

14. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for data retention.

15. A computer program product for proactively providing corrective measures for storage arrays, the computer program product disposed upon a non-transitory computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising computer program instructions that, when executed, cause a computer to carry out the steps of:

detecting, in dependence upon a problem signature, one or more events from data of a storage array that are indicative of a particular problem, wherein the problem signature comprises a specification of a pattern of events indicative of the particular problem experienced by at least one other storage array;

determining that the particular problem violates an operational policy of the storage array, the operational policy specifying at least one requirement for an operational metric of the storage array; and

deploying one or more corrective measures to prevent the storage array from experiencing the particular problem.

16. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for high availability.

17. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for failover availability.

18. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum data reduction ratio.

19. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum input/output latency.

20. The computer program product of claim 15 wherein the operational policy of the storage array further comprises a specification of a requirement for a minimum replication throughput.