CLUSTER OF PROCESSING NODES WITH DISTRIBUTED GLOBAL FLASH MEMORY USING COMMODITY SERVER TECHNOLOGY

• US 20120017037A1
• Filed: 04/11/2011
• Published: 01/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: SanDisk Enterprise IP LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Inventors: Dinker, Darpan, Koster, Michael J., Riddle, Thomas A., Eckhardt, Andrew D.
• Granted Patent: US 9,047,351 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 711/103
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24569 Query processing with adaptation to specific hardware, e.g. adapted for using GPUs or SSDs
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/25 Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems

Abstract

Approaches for a distributed storage system that comprises a plurality of nodes. Each node, of the plurality of nodes, executes one or more application processes which are capable of accessing persistent shared memory. The persistent shared memory is implemented by solid state devices physically maintained on each of the plurality of nodes. Each the one or more application processes, maintained on a particular node, of the plurality of nodes, communicates with a shared data fabric (SDF) to access the persistent shared memory. The persistent shared memory comprises a scoreboard implemented in shared DRAM memory that is mapped to a persistent storage. The scoreboard provides a crash tolerant mechanism for enabling application processes to communicate with the shared data fabric (SDF).

Claims

1. A distributed storage system, comprising:

a plurality of nodes, wherein each node, of the plurality of nodes executes one or more application processes which are capable of accessing persistent shared memory, wherein the persistent shared memory is implemented by solid state devices physically maintained on each of the plurality of nodes,

wherein each the one or more application processes, maintained on a particular node, of the plurality of nodes, communicates with a shared data fabric (SDF) to access the persistent shared memory.

2. The distributed storage system of claim 1, wherein the persistent shared memory comprises a scoreboard implemented in shared DRAM memory that is mapped to a persistent storage, wherein the scoreboard provides a crash tolerant mechanism for enabling application processes to communicate with the shared data fabric (SDF).

3. The distributed storage system of claim 2, wherein the state of a particular outstanding request, stored by the scoreboard, identifies an operation, a thread index, and a completion status associated with the particular outstanding request.

4. The distributed storage system of claim 2, wherein regions of the persistent shared memory may be allocated by one process and deallocated by a different process.

5. The distributed storage system of claim 1, wherein reference counts are maintained for regions of the persistent shared memory, and wherein only unreferenced regions of the persistent shared memory may be deallocated.

6. The distributed storage system of claim 1, wherein regions of the persistent shared memory may be designated as non-pageable.