Combined data storage and computing appliance that provides scalable storage in a clustered computing environment

• US 9,645,628 B1
• Filed: 11/02/2011
• Issued: 05/09/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Loafman, Zachary Merlynn, Paterra, Frank Charles, Sunny Veliath, Deepak, Cardente, John Thomas, Forecast, John
• Primary Examiner(s): Hussain, Tauqir
• Assistant Examiner(s): Keller, Michael A
• Application Number:
  US13/287,901
• Time in Patent Office: 2,015 Days
• Field of Search: 709223-226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3206 Monitoring of events, devices or parameters that trigger a change in power modality
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3209 Monitoring remote activity, e.g. over telephone lines or network connections
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3212 Monitoring battery levels, e.g. power saving mode being initiated when battery voltage goes below a certain level
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/501 Performance criteria
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/504 Resource capping
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5027 the resource being a machine, e.g. CPUs, Servers, Terminals
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5061 Partitioning or combining of resources
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5077 Logical partitioning of resources; Management or configuration of virtualized resources specific details on emulation or internal functioning of virtual machines G06F9/455
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5088 involving task migration
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

Various embodiments are directed toward improving computing performance for data intensive computing applications by arranging a physical machine into a single computing appliance that includes tightly coupled dedicated computation and storage resources that may scale to multiple peta-byte or greater storage in concert with providing a similarly scaling computing and data caching platform, monitoring co-resident guest applications, and data access applications. Generally, the computing appliance may be arranged to execute compute applications and data storage applications in a single self-contained computing device. The data storage applications may execute within virtual machines (VM'"'"'s) and the compute applications may execute in other co-resident VM'"'"'s residing one or more computing appliances.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

Maintaining a data storage cluster of nodes wherein nodes among the data storage cluster of nodes are interconnected by a network backplane;

Monitoring a guest application executing on a physical machine that is not a part of the data storage cluster of nodes for compliance with a policy, wherein the policy is based at least in part on a front side bandwidth and a performance profile wherein the front side bandwidth indicates the amount of data the guest application is pulling from the data storage cluster of nodes;

In response to the guest application being non-compliant with the policy, wherein non-compliance is based at least in part on the front side bandwidth reaching an efficiency threshold;

Determining an application type for the guest application wherein types of applications include at least a compute intensive application, a data storage intensive application, and a hybrid application, wherein the computing resource utilization associated with the compute intensive application indicates high utilization of processors, high disk access, and a large memory footprint, wherein the computing resource utilization associated with the data storage intensive application indicates substantial non-local data storage access activity;

determining a target node among the data storage cluster of nodes based on at least one of the application type and the performance profile;

migrating the guest application to the target node;

enforcing the policy on the guest application on the target node;

determining if the guest application is in compliance with the policy on the target node; and

reporting at least one of the policy violation and a policy resolution.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the target node is one of a data storage node, a compute accelerator node, and a hybrid node that includes at least a portion of a capability for each of the data storage node device and the compute accelerator node device.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the data storage node further comprises additional data storage devices for utilization by the application.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the compute accelerator node further comprises additional processing devices for utilization by the application.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

In response to migrating the guest application to the target node, monitoring computing resources utilized by each node device in the data storage cluster of nodes;

if the monitoring identifies the target node does not fulfill the performance profile for the guest application and another node in the data storage cluster of nodes is available to fulfill the performance profile for the guest application migrating the application to the another node.

6. An apparatus for improving computing resource utilization for a data storage cluster of nodes interconnected by a network backplane, comprising:

a memory device for storing data and instructions;

a data storage device for storing data and instructions; and

a processor for executing instructions that perform actions, including;

Monitoring a guest application executing on a physical machine that is not a part of the data storage cluster of nodes for compliance with a policy, wherein the policy is based at least in part on a front side bandwidth and a performance profile wherein the front side bandwidth indicates the amount of data the guest application is pulling from the data storage cluster of nodes;

In response to the guest application being non-compliant with the policy, wherein non-compliance is based at least in part on the front side bandwidth reaching an efficiency threshold;

Determining an application type for the guest application wherein types of applications include at least a compute intensive application, a data storage intensive application, and a hybrid application, wherein the computing resource utilization associated with the compute intensive application indicates high utilization of processors, high disk access, and a large memory footprint, wherein the computing resource utilization associated with the data storage intensive application indicates substantial non-local data storage access activity;

determining a target node among the data storage cluster of nodes based on at least one of the application type and the performance profile;

migrating the guest application to the target node;

enforcing the policy on the guest application on the target node;

determining if the guest application is in compliance with the policy on the target node; and

reporting at least one of the policy violation and a policy resolution.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the target node is one of a data storage node, a compute accelerator node, and a hybrid node that includes at least a portion of a capability for each of the data storage node device and the compute accelerator node device.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the data storage node further comprises additional data storage devices for utilization by the application.

9. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein the compute accelerator node further comprises additional processing devices for utilization by the application.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, further comprising the actions of:

In response to migrating the guest application to the target node, monitoring computing resources utilized by each node device in the data storage cluster of nodes;

if the monitoring identifies the target node does not fulfill the performance profile for the guest application and another node in the data storage cluster of nodes is available to fulfill the performance profile for the guest application migrating the application to the another node.

11. A processor readable non-transitory storage media that includes instructions thereon wherein the execution of the instructions by a processor causes actions, comprising:

Maintaining a data storage cluster of nodes wherein nodes among the data storage cluster of nodes are interconnected by a network backplane;

Monitoring a guest application executing on a physical machine that is not a part of the data storage cluster of nodes for compliance with a policy, wherein the policy is based at least in part on a front side bandwidth and a performance profile wherein the front side bandwidth indicates the amount of data the guest application is pulling from the data storage cluster of nodes;

In response to the guest application being non-compliant with the policy, wherein non-compliance is based at least in part on the front side bandwidth reaching an efficiency threshold;

Determining an application type for the guest application wherein types of applications include at least a compute intensive application, a data storage intensive application, and a hybrid application, wherein the computing resource utilization associated with the compute intensive application indicates high utilization of processors, high disk access, and a large memory footprint, wherein the computing resource utilization associated with the data storage intensive application indicates substantial non-local data storage access activity;

determining a target node among the data storage cluster of nodes based on at least one of the application type and the performance profile;

migrating the guest application to the target node;

enforcing the policy on the guest application on the target node;

determining if the guest application is in compliance with the policy on the target node; and

reporting at least one of the policy violation and a policy resolution.

12. The media of claim 11, wherein the target node is one of a data storage node, a compute accelerator node, and a hybrid node that includes at least a portion of a capability for each of the data storage node device and the compute accelerator node device.

13. The media of claim 12, wherein the data storage node further comprises additional data storage devices for utilization by the application.

14. The media of claim 12, wherein the compute accelerator node further comprises additional processing devices for utilization by the application.

15. The media of claim 11, further comprising the actions of:

In response to migrating the guest application to the target node, monitoring computing resources utilized by each node device in the data storage cluster of nodes;

if the monitoring identifies the target node does not fulfill the performance profile for the guest application and another node in the data storage cluster of nodes is available to fulfill the performance profile for the guest application migrating the application to the another node.