WO1999063442B1 - Fibre channel topological structure and method and application with raid devices and controllers - Google Patents

Fibre channel topological structure and method and application with raid devices and controllers

Info

Publication number
WO1999063442B1
WO1999063442B1 PCT/US1999/012534 US9912534W WO9963442B1 WO 1999063442 B1 WO1999063442 B1 WO 1999063442B1 US 9912534 W US9912534 W US 9912534W WO 9963442 B1 WO9963442 B1 WO 9963442B1
Authority
WO
WIPO (PCT)
Prior art keywords
channel
channels
storage system
coupling
access
Prior art date
Application number
PCT/US1999/012534
Other languages
French (fr)
Other versions
WO1999063442A1 (en
Inventor
Thomas E Richardson
Original Assignee
Mylex Corp
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Mylex Corp filed Critical Mylex Corp
Priority to AU44191/99A priority Critical patent/AU4419199A/en
Publication of WO1999063442A1 publication Critical patent/WO1999063442A1/en
Publication of WO1999063442B1 publication Critical patent/WO1999063442B1/en

Links

Classifications

    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F11/00—Error detection; Error correction; Monitoring
    • G06F11/07—Responding to the occurrence of a fault, e.g. fault tolerance
    • G06F11/16—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware
    • G06F11/20—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements
    • G06F11/2002—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements where interconnections or communication control functionality are redundant
    • G06F11/2007—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements where interconnections or communication control functionality are redundant using redundant communication media
    • G06F11/201—Error detection or correction of the data by redundancy in hardware using active fault-masking, e.g. by switching out faulty elements or by switching in spare elements where interconnections or communication control functionality are redundant using redundant communication media between storage system components
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
    • G06F3/06—Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers, e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
    • G06F3/0601—Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems
    • G06F3/0602—Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems specifically adapted to achieve a particular effect
    • G06F3/061—Improving I/O performance
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
    • G06F3/06—Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers, e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
    • G06F3/0601—Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems
    • G06F3/0602—Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems specifically adapted to achieve a particular effect
    • G06F3/0614—Improving the reliability of storage systems
    • G06F3/0617—Improving the reliability of storage systems in relation to availability
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
    • G06F3/06—Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers, e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
    • G06F3/0601—Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems
    • G06F3/0628—Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems making use of a particular technique
    • G06F3/0629—Configuration or reconfiguration of storage systems
    • G06F3/0635—Configuration or reconfiguration of storage systems by changing the path, e.g. traffic rerouting, path reconfiguration
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G06—COMPUTING; CALCULATING OR COUNTING
    • G06F—ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING
    • G06F3/00—Input arrangements for transferring data to be processed into a form capable of being handled by the computer; Output arrangements for transferring data from processing unit to output unit, e.g. interface arrangements
    • G06F3/06—Digital input from, or digital output to, record carriers, e.g. RAID, emulated record carriers or networked record carriers
    • G06F3/0601—Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems
    • G06F3/0668—Interfaces specially adapted for storage systems adopting a particular infrastructure
    • G06F3/0671—In-line storage system
    • G06F3/0683—Plurality of storage devices
    • G06F3/0689—Disk arrays, e.g. RAID, JBOD

Abstract

System, apparatus and method for interconnecting computer devices define an interconnect topology maximizing performance and device availability in the event of a communication channel failure. Structure and method are particularly relevant and beneficial to a computer RAID disk interconnection topology for Fibre Channel connections to improve RAID array performance and data availability, but is not limited to such RAID systems, and other devices may be interconnected according to the structure and method of the invention. A topology having multiple dual-ported controllers configured in a tube topology is provided for a switchable configuration having a plurality of channels and a plurality of controllers arranged in a tube topology or structure. In the event of a channel failure for this structure, the load will be evenly distributed to the remaining controllers. One embodiment provides a data storage system having a plurality of storage devices each having first and second access ports, a plurality of communication channels, a controller controlling access by the plurality storage devices to the plurality of channels, where at least one of the devices is connected via the first access port to a first one of the channels and via the second access port to a second one of the channels, so that the one device may be accessed by the controller via either the first or second channel. Mathematical relationships between the minimum number of devices for an automatically balanced system and the number of channels are described.

Claims

AMENDED CLAIMS
[received by the International Bureau on 20 December 1999 (20.12.99); new claims 31-35 added; remaining claims unchanged (2 pages)] access to the disks is achieved in order to support multiple processes on a host computer concurrently accessing data in different locations of the file system.
28. The multiple-RAID5 storage system loop topology interconnect structure in Claim 27, wherein said channel is a Fibre channel, and each said disk drive is a dual-port and dual-access disk drive.
29. A method of coupling a plurality of multi-ported information storage elements to provide redundant access and dynamic automatic channel load shifting and leveling, said method comprising: coupling each port of said multi -ported information storage elements to a separate channel selected from a plurality of substantially independent communication channels such that failure of a single channel does not decouple any one of said information storage elements from an input/output controller; coupling multiple controllers to all of said information storage elements so that in the event of a failure of one particular controller, each of said information storage elements are accessible through a different one of said multiple controllers.
30. The method in Claim 29, further comprising: providing a cache in each of said multiple controllers and coupling said caches so that each controller has access to the cache of each other of said controllers.
31. A storage system comprising: a plurality of disk drives, each said disk drive having a normally active port and a normally inactive port; at least one controller for controlling communication with said plurality of disk drives via said normally active ports and under a predetermined condition via said normally inactive ports; a plurality of communication channel extending between and coupling said at least one controller and said normally active and said normally inactive ports of said plurality of disk drives; said at least one communication channel coupling said plurality of disk drives to said controller so that in the even that one of said communications channels fails, disk access loading is evenly and automatically redistributed between non-failed ones of said plurality of communications channels, wherein the relationship between the minimum number of disk drives for an automatically balanced system, and the number of channels is defined by an equation, the equation taking into account whether the disk drives are fully-dual-ported disk drives or whether the disk drives have only a single active port at any time.
32. The storage system of claim 31, wherein the equation is defined by: c- l n = m x k χ T i ι=\
where k is a constant equal to 2 for drives having only a single active port at any time, and equal to 1 for fully-dual-ported drives, and m is an integer equal to 1 that defines the minimum number of devices for redundant balanced operations and equal to an integer greater than 1 for redundant load balanced operation and higher storage capacity.
33. The storage system in Claim 31, wherein said predetermined condition comprises a failure of one of said communications channels coupling to said normally active port of said disk drive.
34. The storage system in Claim 31, wherein each said communications channel is selected from the group consisting of a Fibre communications channel, a HIPPIE communications channel, a Fire Wire communications channel, a SCSI communications channel, and combinations thereof.
35. The storage system in Claim 2, wherein said storage system comprises a
Redundant Array of Independent Disk (RAID) storage system.
PCT/US1999/012534 1998-06-05 1999-06-04 Fibre channel topological structure and method and application with raid devices and controllers WO1999063442A1 (en)

Priority Applications (1)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
AU44191/99A AU4419199A (en) 1998-06-05 1999-06-04 Fibre channel topological structure and method and application with raid devicesand controllers

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
US8815698P 1998-06-05 1998-06-05
US60/088,156 1998-06-05

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
WO1999063442A1 WO1999063442A1 (en) 1999-12-09
WO1999063442B1 true WO1999063442B1 (en) 2000-02-17

Family

ID=22209681

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
PCT/US1999/012534 WO1999063442A1 (en) 1998-06-05 1999-06-04 Fibre channel topological structure and method and application with raid devices and controllers

Country Status (2)

Country Link
AU (1) AU4419199A (en)
WO (1) WO1999063442A1 (en)

Families Citing this family (8)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
JP4462711B2 (en) * 2000-04-18 2010-05-12 株式会社日立製作所 Storage system
US6918006B1 (en) 2000-10-30 2005-07-12 International Business Machines Corporation System and method to coordinate data storage device management operations in a data storage subsystem
US7401161B2 (en) 2000-12-18 2008-07-15 Sun Microsystems, Inc. High performance storage array interconnection fabric using multiple independent paths
US6718428B2 (en) 2000-12-18 2004-04-06 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Storage array interconnection fabric using a torus topology
US7072976B2 (en) 2001-01-04 2006-07-04 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Scalable routing scheme for a multi-path interconnection fabric
US6909695B2 (en) 2001-05-07 2005-06-21 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Fault-tolerant, self-healing routing scheme for a multi-path interconnection fabric in a storage network
US7007189B2 (en) 2001-05-07 2006-02-28 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Routing scheme using preferred paths in a multi-path interconnection fabric in a storage network
JP2006293863A (en) * 2005-04-13 2006-10-26 Hitachi Ltd Disk array device and control method thereof

Family Cites Families (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
JP2777301B2 (en) * 1992-01-07 1998-07-16 三菱電機株式会社 Recording device
US5588110A (en) * 1995-05-23 1996-12-24 Symbios Logic Inc. Method for transferring data between two devices that insures data recovery in the event of a fault
US5694615A (en) * 1995-06-26 1997-12-02 Hewlett Packard Company Storage system having storage units interconnected to form multiple loops to provide simultaneous access from multiple hosts
US5729763A (en) * 1995-08-15 1998-03-17 Emc Corporation Data storage system
US5922077A (en) * 1996-11-14 1999-07-13 Data General Corporation Fail-over switching system

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
AU4419199A (en) 1999-12-20
WO1999063442A1 (en) 1999-12-09

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