Heterogenic volume generation and use system
First Claim
1. A computing system comprising:
- at least one processor; and
one or more hardware storage device having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that are executable by the at least one processor and that cause the computing system to implement a method of storing namespace items, the method comprising;
implementing a file system and a volume system, the volume system being configured to expose a volume to the file system in a manner that the volume is exposed with a plurality of tiers;
storing a file system namespace item in a particular tier of the plurality of tiers based on storage traits that are determined to apply to the file system namespace item, each storage trait being either a mandatory storage trait or an optional storage trait, wherein a determination as to which tier the file system namespace item is to be stored in is based at least partially on whether one or more of the storage traits of the file system namespace item are mandatory or optional, whereby mandatory storage traits take precedence over optional storage traits when determining which tier the file system namespace item will be stored in;
monitoring and detecting one or more changes to the storage traits that apply to the file system namespace item subsequent to storage of the file system namespace item, wherein at least one change of the one or more changes that is detectable by the computing system is a mandatory storage trait changing into an optional storage trait after a request for the at least one change is submitted; and
moving the file system namespace item from the particular tier of the plurality of tiers to a different tier in response to detecting the one or more changes to the one or more of the storage traits that apply to the file system namespace item subsequent to storage of the file system namespace item, wherein said one or more changes causes the storage traits of the file system namespace item to correspond more closely to the different tier than the particular tier.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A system in which a file system may operate on a volume in which the logical address extent of the volume is divided into multiple tiers, each tier providing storage having a distinct trait set by mapping the logical addresses of the volume to appropriate underlying storage systems. A volume system exposes the volume to the file system in a manner that the file system itself has awareness of the tiers, and is aware of the trait sets of each tier. The file system may thus store file system namespaces (such as directories and files) into the tiers as appropriate for the file system namespace. A provisioning system may also be provided and be configured to provision the volume to include such tiers, and if desired, to extend the tiers.
44 Citations
26 Claims
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1. A computing system comprising:
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at least one processor; and one or more hardware storage device having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that are executable by the at least one processor and that cause the computing system to implement a method of storing namespace items, the method comprising; implementing a file system and a volume system, the volume system being configured to expose a volume to the file system in a manner that the volume is exposed with a plurality of tiers; storing a file system namespace item in a particular tier of the plurality of tiers based on storage traits that are determined to apply to the file system namespace item, each storage trait being either a mandatory storage trait or an optional storage trait, wherein a determination as to which tier the file system namespace item is to be stored in is based at least partially on whether one or more of the storage traits of the file system namespace item are mandatory or optional, whereby mandatory storage traits take precedence over optional storage traits when determining which tier the file system namespace item will be stored in; monitoring and detecting one or more changes to the storage traits that apply to the file system namespace item subsequent to storage of the file system namespace item, wherein at least one change of the one or more changes that is detectable by the computing system is a mandatory storage trait changing into an optional storage trait after a request for the at least one change is submitted; and moving the file system namespace item from the particular tier of the plurality of tiers to a different tier in response to detecting the one or more changes to the one or more of the storage traits that apply to the file system namespace item subsequent to storage of the file system namespace item, wherein said one or more changes causes the storage traits of the file system namespace item to correspond more closely to the different tier than the particular tier. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable hardware storage devices having thereon one or more computer-executable instructions that are executable by one or more processors of a computing system to cause the computing system to operate the following:
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a file system; and a volume system configured to expose a volume to the file system in a manner that the volume is exposed with a plurality of tiers, each tier of the volume comprising a region of contiguous slabs in a logical addressing scheme of the volume that are all associated with a distinct trait set, the volume having at least some thickly provisioned slabs that are mapped to the one or more storage device and at least one or more thinly provisioned slabs that are not mapped to any storage device, wherein the file system is configured to store a file system namespace item or a file fragment in a particular tier of the plurality of tiers based on storage traits to be applied to the file system namespace item, each storage trait being either a mandatory storage trait or an optional storage trait, and wherein a determination as to which tier the file system namespace item is to be stored in is based at least partially on whether one or more of the storage traits of the file system namespace item are mandatory or optional, whereby mandatory storage traits take precedence over optional storage traits when determining which tier the file system namespace item will be stored in, wherein the computing system monitors and detects one or more changes with the storage traits that apply to the file system namespace item subsequent to storage of the file system namespace item, wherein at least one change of the one or more changes that is detectable by the computing system is a mandatory storage trait changing into an optional storage trait after a request for the at least one change is submitted, and wherein the computing system further moves the file system namespace item from the particular tier of the plurality of tiers to a different tier in response to detecting the one or more changes in the one or more of the storage traits that apply to the file system namespace item subsequent to storage of the file system namespace item, wherein said one or more changes causes the storage traits of the file system namespace item to correspond more closely to the different tier than the particular tier.
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20. A computing system comprising:
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at least one processor; a file system; a volume system configured to expose a volume to the file system in a manner that the volume is exposed with a plurality of tiers, each tier comprising storage having of a distinct trait set, wherein the file system is configured to cause a file system namespace item to be stored in at least a particular tier of the plurality of tiers based on storage traits associated with the file system namespace item, each storage trait being either a mandatory storage trait or an optional storage trait, and wherein a determination as to which tier the file system namespace item is to be stored in is based at least partially on whether one or more of the storage traits of the file system namespace item are mandatory or optional, whereby mandatory storage traits take precedence over optional storage traits when determining which tier the file system namespace item will be stored in, a plurality of underlying storage systems, including hardware storage systems; a mapping system configured to map logical address locations of the volume to the plurality of underlying storage systems to support the trait set for each of the plurality of tiers of the volume, wherein the mapping system maps the logical address locations of the volume to a plurality of underlying storage systems in such a manner that each tier of the volume comprises a region of contiguous slabs in a logical addressing scheme; and a provisioning system configured to provision the volume to include the plurality of tiers, including the particular tier that is a match for the storage traits that are associated with the file system namespace item and to responsively store the file system namespace item in the particular tier, the provisioning system being further configured to monitor and detect a change in the storage traits associated with the stored file system namespace item subsequent to storage of the file system namespace item, wherein at least one change of the one or more changes that is detectable by the computing system is a mandatory storage trait changing into an optional storage trait after a request for the at least one change is submitted, and the provisioning system being further configured to determine that a new tier of the plurality of tiers becomes a better match for the file system namespace item than the particular tier due to the change in the storage traits associated with the stored file system namespace item and, in response, to move the file system namespace item to the new tier. - View Dependent Claims (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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Specification