Object storage system

• US 8,959,312 B2
• Filed: 05/08/2014
• Issued: 02/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Vmware LLC (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: VMware, Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Bhat, Rajesh, Vaghani, Satyam B., Sokolinski, Ilia, Shih, Chiao-Chuan, Desai, Komal, Acharya, Sanjay Vasudev
• Primary Examiner(s): NGUYEN, HIEP T
• Application Number:
  US14/273,420
• Publication Number:
  US 20140244929A1
• Time in Patent Office: 285 Days
• US Class Current: 711/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 12/0292 using tables or multilevel address translation means G06F12/023 takes precedence; address translation in virtual memory systems G06F12/10
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0605 by facilitating the interaction with a user or administrator
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0619 in relation to data integrity, e.g. data losses, bit errors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0631 by allocating resources to storage 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

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. Logical storage volumes are created from a logical storage container having an address space that maps to storage locations of the physical data storage units. Each of the logical storage volumes so created has an address space that maps to the address space of the logical storage container. A logical storage container may span more than one storage system and logical storage volumes of different customers can be provisioned from the same logical storage container with appropriate security settings.

Claims

1. A method of creating logical storage volumes from a storage system that includes physical data storage units (DSUs), the method comprising:

creating a logical storage container having an address space that maps to storage locations of the DSUs; and

setting permission levels for creating logical storage volumes from the logical storage container;

receiving a request to create first and second logical storage volumes from the logical storage container;

verifying that the request satisfies the permission levels; and

creating the first and second logical storage volumes, wherein the first and second logical storage volumes each have a configurable storage capability profile and an address space that maps to different addresses of the logical storage container, and are a storage object to which IOs are directed.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage capability profile includes service level agreement (SLA), and the SLAs of the first and second logical storage volumes are different.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the storage capability profile includes qualify of service (QoS), and the QoSs of the first and second logical storage volumes are different.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a default storage capability profile is associated with the storage container and a storage capability profile of a logical storage volume inherits the default storage capability profile if a custom storage capability profile is not defined for the logical storage volume during creation of the logical storage volume.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the logical storage container spans DSUs housed in and controlled by physically separate storage systems.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a first data structure that maps the address space of the storage container to storage locations of the DSUs; and

maintaining a second data structure that maps the address space of each of the logical storage volumes to the address space of the logical storage container.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

updating the first and second data structures so that a size of one of the logical storage volumes is extended.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

cloning one of the logical storage volumes so that the cloned logical storage volume is contained within the same logical storage container.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

cloning one of the logical storage volumes so that the cloned logical storage volume is contained within a different logical storage container.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

configuring a protocol endpoint in the storage system through which the IOs are received.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the protocol endpoint is a LUN and is identified by a world wide name for the LUN.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the protocol endpoint is a mount point configured in the storage system and is identified by an IP address of the storage system and the mount point.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining snapshot parameters for each of the logical storage volumes in a data structure, the data structure being maintained by the storage system; and

performing a snapshot on the logical storage volumes in accordance with the snapshot parameters.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the snapshot parameters include snapshot frequency and the number of snapshots to be retained.

15. A storage system cluster, comprising:

first and second storage systems each having a set of physical data storage units (DSUs); and

a distributed storage system manager that is configured to create first and second logical storage containers, each having an address space that maps to different storage locations of the DSUs, and to create a plurality of logical storage volumes from each of the logical storage containers, the logical storage volumes created from the first logical storage container each having an address space that maps to different addresses of the first logical storage container and the logical storage volumes created from the second logical storage container each having an address space that maps to different addresses of the second logical storage container,

wherein the first storage container is configured with a setting that permits access by a first set of users and not by a second set of users and the second storage container is configured with a setting that permits access by the second set of users and not by the first set of users.

16. The storage system cluster of claim 15, wherein a portion of the address space of the first logical storage container and a portion of the address space of the second logical storage container map to different storage locations within the same DSU.

17. The storage system cluster of claim 15, further comprising:

a first data structure that maintains the mapping of the address space of each of the storage containers to storage locations of the DSUs; and

a second data structure that maintains the mapping of the address space of each of the logical storage volumes to the address space one of the logical storage containers.

18. The storage system cluster of claim 17, wherein the distributed storage system manager updates the second data structure when a logical storage volume is created or deleted.

19. A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions that are executable in a storage system that includes physical data storage units (DSUs) to cause the storage system to carry out a method of creating logical storage volumes therein, the method comprising:

creating a logical storage container having an address space that maps to storage locations of the DSUs;

setting permission levels for creating logical storage volumes from the logical storage container;

receiving a request to create first and second logical storage volumes from the logical storage container;

verifying that the request satisfies the permission levels; and

creating the first and second logical storage volumes, wherein the first and second logical storage volumes each have an address space that maps to different addresses of the logical storage container, and are a storage object to which IOs are directed.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the method further comprises:

configuring a protocol endpoint in the storage system through which the IOs are received.