Management system and methods for object storage system

• US 8,775,774 B2
• Filed: 08/26/2011
• Issued: 07/08/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Desai, Komal, Vaghani, Satyam B.
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, HIEP T
• Application Number:
  US13/219,392
• Publication Number:
  US 20130054890A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,047 Days
• US Class Current: 711/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0223 User address space allocation, e.g. contiguous or non contiguous base addressing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0604 Improving or facilitating administration, e.g. storage management
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0632 by initialisation or re-initialisation of storage systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/065 Replication mechanisms
• 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 3/0688 Non-volatile semiconductor memory arrays
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/061 for key exchange, e.g. in peer-to-peer networks cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for key agreement H04L9/0838

Abstract

The storage system exports logical storage volumes that are provisioned as storage objects. These storage objects are accessed on demand by connected computer systems using standard protocols, such as SCSI and NFS, through logical endpoints for the protocol traffic that are configured in the storage system. To facilitate creation and management of logical storage volumes, special application programming interfaces (APIs) have been developed. The special APIs include commands to create a logical storage volume, bind, unbind, and rebind the logical storage volume, extend the size of the logical storage volume, clone the logical storage volume, and move the logical storage volume.

Claims

1. In a computer system that is connected to a storage system via input-output command (IO) paths and non-IO paths, a method for provisioning a logical storage volume for an application running in the computer system, the method comprising:

selecting by the computer system a logical storage container created in the storage system;

issuing a request from the computer system to the storage system via a non-IO path to create the logical storage volume in the selected logical storage container; and

storing a unique identifier for the logical storage volume received by the computer system from the storage system in response to the request and associating the unique identifier with a virtual machine running in the computer system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the logical storage volume stores metadata files of the virtual machine, the metadata files including a disk descriptor file for a virtual disk of the virtual machine.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the logical storage volume stores data files of the virtual disk and has a size defined in the disk descriptor file for the virtual disk.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

issuing a request to the storage system to increase the size of the virtual disk; and

updating the disk descriptor file for the virtual disk to indicate the increased size.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

issuing a request to the storage system to clone the logical storage volume between same or different logical storage containers.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

determining that the logical storage containers are not compatible; and

issuing data movement commands from the computer system to copy contents of the logical storage volume to the cloned logical storage volume.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

issuing a request to the storage system to move the logical storage volume between logical storage containers in the storage system.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

determining that an IO path from the computer system to the storage system would be broken as a result of the move; and

issuing a request to establish a new IO path from the computer system to the storage system after the move is completed.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the logical storage container has sufficient space to accommodate the logical storage volume.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

transmitting authentication credentials and a decryption key to the storage system,

wherein, upon authentication of the computer system by the storage system, the request to create the logical storage volume is issued to the storage system in an encrypted form that can be decrypted using the decryption key.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage system is a SCSI protocol-based storage system.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage system is an NFS protocol-based storage system.

13. In a computer system that is connected to a storage system via input-output command (IO) paths and non-IO paths, a method for reprovisioning a logical storage volume for virtual machine running in the computer system, the method comprising:

issuing a request from the computer system to the storage system via a non-IO path to increase a size of the logical storage volume provisioned in the selected logical storage container;

receiving acknowledgement of the increase in size by the computer system from the storage system; and

updating a metadata file associated with the logical storage volume to indicate the increased size.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

determining that the logical storage container has sufficient space to accommodate the increased size of the logical storage volume.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the application is a virtual machine and the updated metadata file is a disk descriptor file for a virtual disk of the virtual machine.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the metadata file is stored in another logical storage volume that has been provisioned for the virtual machine.

17. A computer system connected to a storage system via input-output command (IO) paths and non-IO paths, the computer system comprising:

a management interface in a non-IO path; and

a storage interface in an IO path,

wherein the management interface is configured to;

(i) generate a request to create a logical storage volume in the storage system and to receive in response to the request a unique identifier for the logical storage volume, and (ii) generate a request to bind the logical storage volume to a protocol endpoint configured in the storage system and to receive in response to the request first and second identifiers, and

wherein the storage interface encodes IO issued to the logical storage volume with the first and second identifiers.

18. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the storage interface generates IOs in SCSI compliant format.

19. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the storage interface generates IOs in NFS compliant format.

20. The computer system of claim 17, wherein the management interface is configured to generate a request to rebind the logical storage volume and to receive in response to the request new first and second identifiers, the new first identifier identifying a new protocol endpoint to which the logical storage volume is bound and the new second identifier uniquely identifying the logical storage volume amongst all logical storage volumes bound to the new protocol endpoint.