Patent ID: 8627034
Filing Date: 2014-01-07
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A storage control apparatus, which is a first storage control apparatus, of one of a copy-source storage control apparatus and a copy-destination storage control apparatus in a remote copy system for carrying out asynchronous remote copying in which a journal including user data, which is data written to a primary logical volume, is sent from the copy-source storage control apparatus to the copy-destination storage control apparatus, and the journal is reflected in a secondary logical volume by writing the user data included in the journal to the secondary logical volume, the storage control apparatus comprising: a first interface coupled to a storage device; a second interface coupled to a second storage control apparatus, which is the other one of the copy-source apparatus and the copy-destination storage control apparatus; and a controller coupled to the first and second interfaces, wherein the controller configures a virtual volume, which is a virtual logical volume complying with thin provisioning, is employed as a journal volume into which one or more journals are written, and the virtual volume is formed of multiple virtual areas, and, a size of each of the journals is smaller than a size of each of the virtual areas, the controller adds a journal to the journal volume, the controller, when writing the journal to the journal volume, adds the journal to an actual area, which has been assigned to one of the virtual areas from a pool formed of multiple actual areas based on the storage device, wherein the number of actual areas assigned to a journal volume is N, and N is an integer of equal to or larger than 1 and is smaller than the number of actual areas to be assigned to the entire journal volume, and the controller, in a case where a new journal cannot be added to the N actual areas assigned to the journal volume and where there is an old journal, which has been copied to the assigned N actual areas, performs a wraparound for overwriting the old journal with the new journal, and the controller newly assigns one of the actual areas to the journal volume, and adds a journal to the newly assigned actual area, the controller is further configured to: (A) in a case where at least one journal has been transferred from one of the virtual areas, make a status of the one of the virtual areas a first status, and (B) in a case where all journals of one of the virtual areas have either been stored by the second storage control apparatus or are reflected in the secondary logical volume, makes the status of the one of the virtual areas a second status, and the controller, subsequent to a first point of time at which the status of X virtual areas have transitioned to the second status, stops newly assigning an actual area to the journal volume, where X is an integer of equal to or larger than 1 and N is the number of actual areas assigned to the journal volume at the first point of time.