Processing storage capacity events in connection with file systems

• US 9,870,366 B1
• Filed: 09/18/2015
• Issued: 01/16/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 09/18/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Emc IP Holding Company LLC (Dell Technologies Inc.)
• Inventors: Duan, Seven Wei, Wang, Denny Dengyu, Xu, Tony Fuchuan, Zhang, Lester Ming, Toor, Umer Najem
• Primary Examiner(s): Lane, John A
• Application Number:
  US14/858,376
• Time in Patent Office: 851 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1734 Details of monitoring file system events, e.g. by the use of hooks, filter drivers, logs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2201/81 Threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0608 Saving storage space on storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0653 Monitoring storage devices or systems
• 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 3/0689 Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

Described are techniques for processing capacity-related event occurrence. A first occurrence is determined for of any of a low threshold event and an out of space event for a first storage pool. A set of one or more virtually provisioned logical devices has physical storage provisioned from the first storage pool and physical storage for a file system is provisioned from the set of one or more virtually provisioned logical devices. First processing is performed responsive to determining the first occurrence of any of the low threshold event and the out of space event for the first storage pool. The first processing includes performing processing to that protects the file system.

Claims

1. A method of processing capacity-related event occurrences comprising:

determining a first occurrence of a low threshold event for a first storage pool, wherein the low threshold event occurs when an amount of free storage in the first storage pool is less than a threshold, wherein a set of one or more virtually provisioned logical devices has physical storage provisioned from the first storage pool and physical storage for a file system is provisioned from the set of one or more virtually provisioned logical devices; and

performing first processing responsive to determining the first occurrence of the low threshold event for the first storage pool, the first processing including performing processing that protects the file system, wherein the first processing includes performing processing to handle the first occurrence of the low space event for the first storage pool, the first processing including remounting the file system as read only, wherein after said remounting, the file system is read only and still has its physical storage provisioned from the first storage pool that experienced the first occurrence of the low threshold event.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first processing includes generating an alert regarding the low space event for the first storage pool.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first processing includes suspending any replication sessions involving the file system.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first processing includes:

increasing free capacity of the first storage pool;

determining whether current free capacity of the first storage pool is greater than a threshold denoting a minimum amount of free capacity;

if it is determined that the current free capacity of the first storage pool is not greater than the threshold, performing processing to further increase the current free capacity of the first storage pool; and

if it is determined that the current free capacity of the first storage pool is greater than the threshold, clearing the low space event for the first storage pool.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising performing additional processing once the low space event for the first storage pool is cleared, the additional processing including:

restoring the file system to its original state prior to the remounting of the file system as read-only.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a second occurrence of an out of space event for the first storage pool; and

performing second processing responsive to determining the occurrence of the out of space event for the first storage pool, the second processing including performing processing that protects the file system.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the second processing includes performing processing to handle the second occurrence of the out of space event for the first storage pool, the second processing including unmounting the file system.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the first occurrence denoting an occurrence of the low space event occurs prior to the second occurrence, and wherein the second processing includes generating an alert regarding the second occurrence of the out of space event for the first storage pool.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the second processing includes:

increasing free capacity of the first storage pool;

determining whether current free capacity of the first storage pool is greater than a threshold denoting a minimum amount of free capacity;

if it is determined that the current free capacity of the first storage pool is not greater than the threshold, performing processing to further increase the current free capacity of the first storage pool; and

if it is determined that the current free capacity of the first storage pool is greater than the threshold, clearing the out of space event for the first storage pool.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising performing additional processing once the out of space event for the first storage pool is cleared, the additional processing including:

restoring the file system to its original state prior to the unmounting of the file system.

11. The method of claim 7, wherein the second processing includes suspending any replication sessions involving the file system.

12. The method of claim 6, wherein there is an occurrence of the out of space event when free capacity of the first storage pool reaches zero.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein a second set of one or more other logical devices have storage provisioned from the first storage pool, and the method includes:

receiving an I/O operation directed to a first logical device in the second set, said I/O operation being a block-based I/O operation to perform any of read and write to a location on the first logical device.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the first logical device is a virtually provisioned logical storage device.

15. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory comprising code stored therein that, when executed, performs a method of processing capacity-related event occurrences comprising;

determining a first occurrence of a low threshold event for a first storage pool, wherein the low threshold event occurs when an amount of free storage in the first storage pool is less than a threshold, wherein a set of one or more virtually provisioned logical devices has physical storage provisioned from the first storage pool and physical storage for a file system is provisioned from the set of one or more virtually provisioned logical devices; and

performing first processing responsive to determining the first occurrence of the low threshold event for the first storage pool, the first processing including performing processing that protects the file system, wherein the first processing includes performing processing to handle the first occurrence of the low space event for the first storage pool, the first processing including remounting the file system as read only, wherein after said remounting, the file system is read only and still has its physical storage provisioned from the first storage pool that experienced the first occurrence of the low threshold event.

16. A computer readable medium comprising code stored thereon that, when executed, performs method of processing capacity-related event occurrences comprising:

determining a first occurrence of a low threshold event for a first storage pool, wherein the low threshold event occurs when an amount of free storage in the first storage pool is less than a threshold, wherein a set of one or more virtually provisioned logical devices has physical storage provisioned from the first storage pool and physical storage for a file system is provisioned from the set of one or more virtually provisioned logical devices; and

performing first processing responsive to determining the first occurrence of the low threshold event for the first storage pool, the first processing including performing processing that protects the file system, wherein the first processing includes performing processing to handle the first occurrence of the low space event for the first storage pool, the first processing including remounting the file system as read only, wherein after said remounting, the file system is read only and still has its physical storage provisioned from the first storage pool that experienced the first occurrence of the low threshold event.