Aggregation and re-ordering of input/output requests for better performance in remote file systems

• US 8,966,000 B2
• Filed: 06/22/2007
• Issued: 02/24/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/22/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ganapathy, Ramanathan, Ootjers, Thomas J., George, Mathew, Kruse, David, Fuller, Jeffrey C.
• Primary Examiner(s): CHRISTENSEN, SCOTT B
• Application Number:
  US11/821,395
• Publication Number:
  US 20080320155A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,804 Days
• Field of Search: 709/230
• US Class Current: 709/217
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/183 Provision of network file services by network file servers, e.g. by using NFS, CIFS network file access protocols H04L67/1097

Abstract

A method and system for managing remote file system requests between client and server redirectors where a set of data request packets may be aggregated and/or ordered at a server based on hint information from a client.

Claims

1. A method, executed on a processor, for handling file portion requests, comprising:

receiving, at a computing device, a group of file portion requests from another computing device, the file portion requests from the group of file portion requests individually corresponding to respective portions of a file, wherein;

individual sizes of the portions of the file requested via the group of file portion requests are less than or equal to a size supported by a transport protocol used for transmitting those file portions,

the file portions requested via the group of file portion requests correspond to file portions of a contiguous set of at least a threshold quantity of portions of the file,

a collective size of the portions of the file requested via the group of file portion requests is greater than the size supported by the transport protocol, and

the file portion requests include sequence numbers associated with a placement of the corresponding file portions within the contiguous set of at least the threshold quantity of portions of the file;

determining that the computing device has received the group of file portion requests corresponding to a contiguous set of at least a threshold quantity, wherein at least some of the file portion requests of the group were received by the computing device out of a sequential order in which those file portion requests were transmitted from the other computing device;

in response to the determination, generating an aggregated request for the contiguous set of portions of the file, the aggregated request being generated based, at least in part, on the sequence numbers of the received file portion requests;

transmitting the aggregated request to a file system accessible from the computing device;

receiving, from the file system, the contiguous set of portions of the file requested by the aggregated request; and

transmitting, from the computing device, the received contiguous set of portions of the file to the other computing device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the received contiguous set of portions of the file includes:

transmitting, to the other computing device, separate responses to each of the file portion requests corresponding to the contiguous set of at least the threshold quantity of portions of the file, each of separate responses including the portion of the file corresponding to that file portion request.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the file system is a component of the computing device.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein transmitting the received contiguous set of portions of the file includes:

responding to each file portion request corresponding to the contiguous set of at least the threshold quantity of portions of the file using data received in response to the aggregated request.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the aggregated request includes:

storing the received file portion requests in a first queue.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein the data received in response to the aggregated request is stored in a first read queue for a period of time and is used to fulfill file portion requests received, during the period of time, for the queued data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one the file portion request includes an indication of a total number of file portion requests that, together, represent the file.

8. The method of claim 7, further wherein the at least one file portion request also includes a number sequence for that file portion requests.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one file portion request also includes an indication of whether that file portion request is a last file portion request of the total number of file portion requests.

10. A computer-storage device having stored therein computer-executable instructions for causing a computing device to perform operations comprising:

receiving plurality of file portion requests from a remote computing device, wherein;

each file portion request of the plurality of file portion requests is associated with a different portion of a file,

individual sizes of the portions of the file requested via the group of file portion requests are less than or equal to a size supported by a transport protocol used for transmitting those file portions,

the file portions requested via the group of file portion requests correspond to file portions of a contiguous set of the file,

a collective size of the portions of the file requested via the group of file portion requests is greater than the size supported by the transport protocol, and

the file portion requests include sequence numbers associated with a placement of the corresponding file portions within the contiguous set of at least the threshold quantity of portions of the file;

aggregating multiple file portion requests into an aggregated request for the different portions requested by each of the multiple file portion requests based, at least in part, on the sequence numbers of each of the multiple file portion requests, at least some of the multiple file portion requests are received by the computing device out of a sequence order in which those file portion requests were transmitted from the remote computing device;

transmitting the aggregated request to a file system;

receiving an aggregated response to the aggregated request from the file system; and

transmitting a plurality of file portion responses to the remote computing device, wherein each file portion response of the plurality of file portion responses is based on a portion of the aggregated response associated with a corresponding file portion request of the multiple file portion requests.

11. The computer-storage device of claim 10, wherein the file portion requests are requests to read the associated different portions of the file, and wherein transmitting the plurality of file portion responses includes:

transmitting at least two portions of the file received from the file system to the remote computing device.

12. The computer-storage device of claim 10, wherein the file portion requests are requests to write data to the associated different portions of the file, and wherein the aggregated request includes the data that is to be written to the associated different portions of the file.

13. The computer-storage device of claim 12, wherein aggregating the multiple file portion requests includes:

ordering the data of the file portion requests according to a sequence indicated by the file portion requests.

14. The computer-storage device of claim 10, wherein the file portion requests include indications that the multiple file portion requests correspond to the file, indications of a quantity of file portion requests in the multiple file portions requests, indications of a sequence for the multiple file portion requests, and indications of whether each of the file portion requests is a last file portion request of the multiple file portion requests.

15. The computer-storage device of claim 10, wherein a quantity of file portion requests in the aggregated multiple portion requests is based on load or capability of the computing device.

16. A computing device, comprising:

a memory and a processor that are respectively configured to store and execute instructions, including instructions for performing operations to respond to file portion requests from another computing device, the operations including;

receiving a group of file portion requests from the other computing device, the file portion requests from the group of file portion requests individually corresponding to respective portions of a file, wherein;

individual sizes of the portions of the file requested via the group of file portion requests are less than or equal to a size supported by a transport protocol used for transmitting those file portions,

the file portions requested via the group of file portion requests correspond to file portions of a contiguous set of at least a threshold quantity of portions of the file,

a collective size of the portions of the file requested via the group of file portion requests is greater than the size supported by the transport protocol, and

the file portion requests include sequence numbers associated with a placement of the corresponding file portions within the contiguous set of at least the threshold quantity of portions of the file;

determining that the computing device has received the group of file portion requests, wherein at least some of the file portion requests of the group were received by the computing device out of a sequential order in which those file portion requests were transmitted from the other computing device;

in response to the determination, generating an aggregated request for the contiguous set of portions of the file, the aggregated request being generated based, at least in part, on the sequence numbers of the received file portion requests;

transmitting the aggregated request to a file system accessible from the computing device;

receiving, from the file system, the contiguous set of portions of the file requested by the aggregated request; and

transmitting, from the computing device, the received contiguous set of portions of the file to the other computing device.

17. The computing device of claim 16, wherein transmitting the received contiguous set of portions of the file includes:

transmitting, to the other computing device, separate responses to each of the file portion requests corresponding to the contiguous set of at least the threshold quantity of portions of the file, each of separate responses including the portion of the file corresponding to that file portion request.

18. The computing device of claim 16, wherein transmitting the received contiguous set of portions of the file includes:

responding to each file portion request corresponding to the contiguous set of at least the threshold quantity of portions of the file using data received in response to the aggregated request.

19. The computing device of claim 16, wherein at least one the file portion request includes an indication of a total number of file portion requests that, together, represent the file.

20. The computing device of claim 16, wherein the at least one file portion request also includes an indication of whether that file portion request is a last file portion request of the total number of file portion requests.