Abstract:
Provided are techniques for locating data in a storage area. Upon receiving a request for data, a search for the data is simultaneously initiated on at least two storage devices, the search being performed on a first storage device using a top down search and on a second storage device using a bottom up search. In response to receiving an indication from at least one of the storage devices that the data was located, the search is terminated on each of the other storage devices.

Description:
RELATED APPLICATION  
       [0001]     This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/813,244, filed on Mar. 29, 2004, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. 
     
    
     BACKGROUND  
       [0002]     Conventional systems may include storage configurations with two Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) devices, which may be referred to as RAID devices Level 1. Disk mirroring refers to a technique in which data is written to two duplicate disks simultaneously so that if one of the disk drives controlling one of the disks fails, another disk drive controlling the other disk may access a copy of the data. Thus, one of the RAID devices mirrors (i.e., stores copies of) the data of the other RAID device.  
         [0003]     A software interface to a disk controller will tell the disk controller which track and sector to read from. To perform the read, the disk controller has to move a read/write head in or out to an appropriate track. The time that it takes to do this is called the seek time. Once the head is correctly positioned, the controller has to wait for the desired sector to spin around so it is under the head. This time is called the rotational delay.  
         [0004]     Since the disk drive may receive many requests for reads and writes, the requests are queued. Then, there are several strategies for scheduling I/O events on a disk. For example, one strategy may be referred to as “Shortest Seek Time First”, in which case when a new request arrives, seek distance of the new request from the current request being processed is calculated and the new request is placed into the queue accordingly. Then, the next closest access is serviced when the current request has been serviced. Another strategy may be referred to as “first come first served”, in which case requests are processed in the order that they are received. Yet another strategy may be referred to as an “elevator algorithm,” in which case requests come in to go to a particular track on a more or less random basis, and the read/write head goes in one direction as long as there are requests in that direction, and then goes in the other direction as long as there are requests in the other direction. At any given instant, the read/write head is either moving in toward the center of the disk or out toward the outside. If the read/write head can satisfy a new request by moving in the same direction, the read/write head does so, but if the read/write head has to switch directions and there are additional requests that could be satisfied without changing direction, the read/write head will not satisfy the new request until the read/write head turns around.  
         [0005]     In order to locate data today, conventional systems implement a strategy for scheduling an I/O event on a disk on one of the RAID devices, while ignoring the other one of the RAID devices. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0006]     Referring now to the drawings in which like reference numbers represent corresponding parts throughout:  
         [0007]      FIG. 1  illustrates computer system in accordance with certain embodiments;  
         [0008]      FIG. 2  illustrates computer system in accordance with certain other embodiments; and  
         [0009]      FIG. 3  illustrates operations to manage communications between devices in accordance with embodiments. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0010]     In the following description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof and which illustrate several embodiments. It is understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural and operational changes may be made.  
         [0011]      FIG. 1  illustrates a computing environment in accordance with embodiments. A client computer  100  is connected via a network  190  to a server computer  120 . The client computer  100  may comprise any computing device known in the art, such as a server, mainframe, workstation, personal computer, hand held computer, laptop telephony device, network appliance, etc. The network  190  may comprise any type of network, such as, for example, a Storage Area Network (SAN), a Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), the Internet, an Intranet, etc. The client computer  100  includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU)  102  and a system memory  104 , which may be implemented in volatile and/or non-volatile devices. One or more client applications  110  may execute in the system memory  104 .  
         [0012]     The server computer  120  includes a Central Processing Unit (CPU)  122  system memory  124 , which may be implemented in volatile and/or non-volatile devices. A data seek controller  132  executes in the system memory  124 . In certain embodiments, the data seek controller  132  is disk controller hardware and software (e.g., RAID controller hardware with firmware). Additionally, one or more server applications  160  execute in system memory  124 .  
         [0013]     The server computer  120  provides the client computer  100  with access to data in a data stores  170   a  . . .  170   n  (where a, n, and the ellipses indicate that that are two or more data stores). Although data stores  170   a  . . .  170   n  are illustrated for ease of understanding, any number of data stores may be connected directly or indirectly (e.g., connected to another computer that is connected to server computer  120 ) to server computer  120 .  
         [0014]     The data stores  170   a  . . .  170   n  may each comprise a storage device or an array of storage devices, such as Direct Access Storage Devices (DASDs), Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD), Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID), virtualization device, etc. Additionally, each data store  170   a  . . .  170   n  includes one or more storage areas.  
         [0015]      FIG. 2  illustrates a computer system in accordance with certain other embodiments. In  FIG. 2 , a data seek controller  132  is able to access storage areas  200   a  . . .  200   n . At least one storage area may be connected (directly or indirectly) to, for example, any bus interface known in the art, such as a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus or PCI express bus (PCI Special Interest Group, PCI Local Bus Specification, Rev 2.3, published March 2002). Although illustrated as separate components, storage areas  200   a  . . .  200   n  may be combined in any manner. For example, storage areas  200   a  and  200   c  may be located on one storage device, while storage area  200   b  may be located on another storage device. Also, the storage areas  200   a  . . .  200   n  may be attached to one or more computers (e.g., servers). The data seek controller  132  may be located at the same or different computer to which one or more storage areas  200   a  . . .  200   n  is attached.  
         [0016]      FIG. 3  illustrates operations to locate data in accordance with embodiments. Control begins at block  300  with receipt by the data seek controller  132  of a request for data. In certain embodiments, the request is a read request that provides a file name, a folder name, or other identifier for the requested data. In block  302 , the data seek controller  132  identifies at least two storage areas storing copies of the requested data. In certain embodiments, the storage areas are storage devices (e.g.,  170   a  and  170   b ). In certain embodiments, the identification is done by maintaining a list of identifiers (e.g., file names) in each storage area and receiving a request for data along with an identifier for the data that is used to identify the storage areas storing copies of the data with that identifier. In certain embodiments, two storage devices are provided, and these two storage devices mirror data to each other and these two storage devices are identified by default. In certain embodiments, the data seek controller  132  selects all storage areas that have copies of the data. In certain embodiments, the number of storage areas that are to be selected is user specified. There may be many copies of data in different storage areas at different locations, and, in certain embodiments, the storage areas to be searched are selected based on a variety of criteria (e.g., location of storage area relative to data seek controller  132 , data transfer rate between the storage area and the data seek controller  132  or type of transmission medium between the storage area and data seek controller). For example, storage areas closest to the data seek controller  132  may be selected.  
         [0017]     In block  304 , the data seek controller  132  simultaneously initiates a search for the requested data on at least two of the storage areas using a different search technique on each storage area. In alternative embodiments, a different search technique is used for each storage area in varying storage environments made up of one or more storage areas (e.g., different SANs, JBODs, NAS devices, etc.), but a same search technique may be used in more than one storage environment. In certain embodiments, the data seek controller  132  selects the particular search technique to be applied based on, for example, a round robin technique. In certain embodiments, the particular search techniques to be used are user specified. In certain embodiments, at least two storage areas reside on two RAID Level 1 (also referred to as “RAID 1) storage devices accessible by the data seek controller  132 , and a top down search is performed on one RAID 1 device while a bottom up search is performed on the other RAID 1 device.  
         [0018]     In block  306 , the data seek controller  132  receives an indication from at least one of the storage areas that the data was located. In block  308 , the data seek controller  132  terminates the searches for the data on the other storage areas. In block  310 , the data seek controller  132  returns the requested data.  
         [0019]     In certain embodiments, a client application  110  sends a request for data to CPU  122  via CPU  102 . The CPU  122  invokes the data seek controller  132  to retrieve the data. The data seek controller  132  retrieves and returns the data to the CPU  122 , which returns the data to the client application  110  via CPU  102 .  
         [0020]     Thus, embodiments reduce seek time for storage configurations in which multiple copies of data are stored in different storage areas (e.g., in storage configurations that use RAID1 devices). Embodiments allow the search for data to occur simultaneously on multiple storage areas using different search techniques. For example, with two RAID1 devices, a bottom-up search is performed on one RAID1 device and a top-down search is performed on the other RAID1 device, which results in decreasing seek time by 50% on average.  
       Additional Embodiment Details  
       [0021]     The described embodiments may be implemented as a method, apparatus or article of manufacture using programming and/or engineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or any combination thereof. The term “article of manufacture” and “circuitry” as used herein refers to a state machine, code or logic implemented in hardware logic (e.g., an integrated circuit chip, Programmable Gate Array (PGA), Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), etc.) or a computer readable medium, such as magnetic storage medium (e.g., hard disk drives, floppy disks,, tape, etc.), optical storage (CD-ROMs, optical disks, etc.), volatile and non-volatile memory devices (e.g., EEPROMs, ROMs, PROMs, RAMs, DRAMs, SRAMs, firmware, programmable logic, etc.). Code in the computer readable medium is accessed and executed by a processor. When the code or logic is executed by a processor, the circuitry may include the medium including the code or logic as well as the processor that executes the code loaded from the medium. The code in which preferred embodiments are implemented may further be accessible through a transmission media or from a file server over a network. In such cases, the article of manufacture in which the code is implemented may comprise a transmission media, such as a network transmission line, wireless transmission media, signals propagating through space, radio waves, infrared signals, etc. Thus, the “article of manufacture” may comprise the medium in which the code is embodied. Additionally, the “article of manufacture” may comprise a combination of hardware and software components in which the code is embodied, processed, and executed. Of course, those skilled in the art will recognize that many modifications may be made to this configuration, and that the article of manufacture may comprise any information bearing medium known in the art. Additionally, the devices, adaptors, etc., may be implemented in one or more integrated circuits on the adaptor or on the motherboard.  
         [0022]     The illustrated operations of  FIG. 3  show certain events occurring in a certain order. In alternative embodiments, certain operations may be performed in a different order, modified or removed. Moreover, operations may be added to the above described logic and still conform to the described embodiments. Further, operations described herein may occur sequentially or certain operations may be processed in parallel. Yet further, operations may be performed by a single processing unit or by distributed processing units.  
         [0023]     The foregoing description of various embodiments has been presented for the purposes of illustration and description. It is not intended to be exhaustive or limiting. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings.