ADJUSTING A DATA STORAGE ADDRESS MAPPING IN A MAINTENANCE FREE STORAGE CONTAINER

• US 20120290877A1
• Filed: 04/18/2012
• Published: 11/15/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Pure Storage, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Cleversafe Incorporated (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Grube, Gary W., Markison, Timothy W.
• Granted Patent: US 9,141,458 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/15
• 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 11/076 by exceeding a count or rate limit, e.g. word- or bit count limit
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0775 Content or structure details of the error report, e.g. specific table structure, specific error fields
• 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 11/1092 Rebuilding, e.g. when physically replacing a failing disk

Abstract

A maintenance free storage container includes a plurality of storage servers, wherein the maintenance free storage container allows for multiple storage servers of the plurality of storage servers to be in a failure mode without replacement. The maintenance free storage container further includes a container controller operable to establish a first mapping of a plurality of virtual storage servers to at least some of the plurality of storage servers and facilitate storage of encoded data slices in the at least some of the plurality of storage servers. The container controller is further operable to when evaluation of storage server utilization information triggers an adjustment, adjust the first mapping to produce a second mapping, facilitate storage of new encoded data based on the second mapping, and facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping based on the data storage adjustment criteria.

Claims

1. A maintenance free storage container comprises:

a plurality of storage servers, wherein a storage server of the plurality storage servers includes a plurality of storage devices and a server control module, wherein the server control module manages storage and retrieval of data from the plurality of storage devices, and wherein the maintenance free storage container allows for multiple storage servers of the plurality of storage servers to be in a failure mode without replacement and allows for multiple storage devices of the plurality of storage devices of one or more the plurality of storage servers to be in the failure mode without replacement; and

a container controller operable to;

establish, based on vault registry information, a first mapping of a plurality of virtual storage servers of a vault to at least some of the plurality of storage servers based on storage server utilization information and storage server failure information;

facilitate storage of encoded data slices in the at least some of the plurality of storage servers in accordance with the first mapping;

when, in light of data storage adjustment criteria of the vault registry information, evaluation of the storage server utilization information and the storage server failure information triggers an adjustment of the first mapping, adjust the first mapping in accordance with the data storage adjustment criteria to produce a second mapping the plurality of virtual storage servers of the vault to the at least some of the plurality of storage servers;

facilitate storage of new encoded data slices in the at least some of the plurality of storage servers based on the second mapping; and

facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping based on the data storage adjustment criteria.

2. The maintenance free storage container of claim 1, wherein the container controller is further operable to facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices by:

identifying encoded data slices of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping for transfer to another maintenance free storage container to produce identified encoded data slices;

facilitating transfer of the identified encoded data slices to the other maintenance free storage container; and

updating the storage server utilization information in accordance with the transferring of the identified encoded data slices.

3. The maintenance free storage container of claim 1, wherein the container controller is further operable to facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices by:

identifying encoded data slices of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping for overwriting; and

updating the storage server utilization information in accordance with the overwriting of the identified encoded data slices.

4. The maintenance free storage container of claim 1, wherein the container controller is further operable to facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices by:

modifying parameters of a dispersed storage coding function based on the data storage adjustment criteria to produce modified parameters; and

facilitating modification of storage of the encoded data slices utilizing the modified parameters.

5. The maintenance free storage container of claim 1, wherein the container controller is further operable to facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices by:

identifying encoded data slices of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping for transfer from a first storage server of the plurality of storage servers to a second storage server of the plurality of storage servers to produce identified encoded data slices;

facilitating transfer of the identified encoded data slices to the second storage server; and

updating the storage server utilization information in accordance with the transferring of the identified encoded data slices.

6. The maintenance free storage container of claim 1, wherein the container controller is operable to adjust the first mapping by:

reassigning a portion of a dispersed storage network (DSN) address range assigned to a first storage server of the plurality of storage servers to a second storage server of the plurality of storage servers.

7. The maintenance free storage container of claim 1, wherein the container controller is further operable to:

establish, based on second vault registry information, a third mapping of a second plurality of virtual storage servers of a second vault to a second at least some of the plurality of storage servers based on the storage server utilization information and the storage server failure information;

facilitate storage of second encoded data slices in the second at least some of the plurality of storage servers in accordance with the third mapping;

when, in light of second data storage adjustment criteria of the second vault registry information, evaluation of the storage server utilization information and the storage server failure information triggers an adjustment of the third mapping, adjust the third mapping in accordance with the second data storage adjustment criteria to produce a fourth mapping the second plurality of virtual storage servers of the vault to the second at least some of the plurality of storage servers;

facilitate storage of new second encoded data slices in the second at least some of the plurality of storage servers based on the fourth mapping; and

facilitate modification of storage of the second encoded data slices stored in accordance with the third mapping based on the second data storage adjustment criteria.

8. The maintenance free storage container of claim 1, wherein the encoded data slices comprise:

data encoded into the encoded data slices in accordance with a dispersed storage error coding function.

9. A container controller comprises:

an external network interface;

an internal network interface; and

a module operable to;

establish, based on vault registry information, a first mapping of a plurality of virtual storage servers of a vault to at least some of a plurality of storage servers based on storage server utilization information and storage server failure information, wherein a storage server of the plurality storage servers includes a plurality of storage devices and a server control module, wherein the server control module manages storage and retrieval of data from the plurality of storage devices, and wherein the maintenance free storage container allows for multiple storage servers of the plurality of storage servers to be in a failure mode without replacement and allows for multiple storage devices of the plurality of storage devices of one or more the plurality of storage servers to be in the failure mode without replacement;

facilitate storage of encoded data slices in the at least some of the plurality of storage servers in accordance with the first mapping;

when, in light of data storage adjustment criteria of the vault registry information, evaluation of the storage server utilization information and the storage server failure information triggers an adjustment of the first mapping, adjust the first mapping in accordance with the data storage adjustment criteria to produce a second mapping the plurality of virtual storage servers of the vault to the at least some of the plurality of storage servers;

facilitate storage of new encoded data slices in the at least some of the plurality of storage servers based on the second mapping; and

facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping based on the data storage adjustment criteria.

10. The container controller of claim 9 is further operable to facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices by:

identifying encoded data slices of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping for transfer to another maintenance free storage container to produce identified encoded data slices;

facilitating transfer of the identified encoded data slices to the other maintenance free storage container; and

updating the storage server utilization information in accordance with the transferring of the identified encoded data slices.

11. The container controller of claim 9 is further operable to facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices by:

identifying encoded data slices of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping for overwriting; and

updating the storage server utilization information in accordance with the overwriting of the identified encoded data slices.

12. The container controller of claim 9 is further operable to facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices by:

modifying parameters of a dispersed storage coding function based on the data storage adjustment criteria to produce modified parameters; and

facilitating modification of storage of the encoded data slices utilizing the modified parameters.

13. The container controller of claim 9 is further operable to facilitate modification of storage of the encoded data slices by:

identifying encoded data slices of the encoded data slices stored in accordance with the first mapping for transfer from a first storage server of the plurality of storage servers to a second storage server of the plurality of storage servers to produce identified encoded data slices;

facilitating transfer of the identified encoded data slices to the second storage server; and

updating the storage server utilization information in accordance with the transferring of the identified encoded data slices.

14. The container controller of claim 9 is further operable to adjust the first mapping by:

reassigning a portion of a dispersed storage network (DSN) address range assigned to a first storage server of the plurality of storage servers to a second storage server of the plurality of storage servers.

15. The container controller of claim 9 is further operable to:

establish, based on second vault registry information, a third mapping of a second plurality of virtual storage servers of a second vault to a second at least some of the plurality of storage servers based on the storage server utilization information and the storage server failure information;

facilitate storage of second encoded data slices in the second at least some of the plurality of storage servers in accordance with the third mapping;

when, in light of second data storage adjustment criteria of the second vault registry information, evaluation of the storage server utilization information and the storage server failure information triggers an adjustment of the third mapping, adjust the third mapping in accordance with the second data storage adjustment criteria to produce a fourth mapping the second plurality of virtual storage servers of the vault to the second at least some of the plurality of storage servers;

facilitate storage of new second encoded data slices in the second at least some of the plurality of storage servers based on the fourth mapping; and

facilitate modification of storage of the second encoded data slices stored in accordance with the third mapping based on the second data storage adjustment criteria.

16. The container controller of claim 9, wherein the encoded data slices comprise:

data encoded into the encoded data slices in accordance with a dispersed storage error coding function.