Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory – Addressing combined with specific memory configuration or... – Virtual machine memory addressing
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-01
2004-11-16
Vital, Pierre M. (Department: 2188)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: memory
Addressing combined with specific memory configuration or...
Virtual machine memory addressing
C711S163000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06820168
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to server and storage techniques, and more particularly, relates to effective techniques for a complex of information processing machines and storage apparatus, as a system formed by interconnecting its components such as a plurality of storage units and CPUs and required to have the ability of providing high security, high response performance and numbers of transactions.
2. Description of Related Art
Combination of servers having a plurality of CPUs, memories and I/O adapters and disk apparatus with a large storage capacity now realizes environment allowing a plurality of users to share these resources. Consequently, protecting the security of individual users and efficiently using the resources have become requirements. To achieve logical volume exclusion control, conventional servers and disk apparatus complexes adopted a method that the I/O adapters installed in the servers are assigned their ID number and the storage side distinguishes them by ID number. An exemplary configuration of a conventional servers and disk apparatus complex is shown in FIG.
2
. Here, a server #
0
(
110
) and another server #
1
(
120
) have a plurality of operating systems OS #
0
(
155
) to OS #
2
(
120
) installed in them respectively. These servers respectively have I/O adapters
118
and
128
and are connected to storage
170
. When accessing the storage
170
, the servers issue data frames
130
,
135
, and
140
from their I/O adapters
118
and
128
. The descriptions contained in the data frames
130
,
135
, and
140
include World Wide Name (WWN) (
205
,
215
,
225
) to which a specific identification number per I/O adapter
118
,
128
is assigned. On the other hand, the disk apparatus
170
has I/O adapters
173
and
174
and receives the above data frames
130
,
135
, and
140
. In the disk apparatus
170
, channel controllers
175
and
176
which perform internal control derive each WWN
205
,
215
,
225
which equals any ID number from the received data frames
130
,
135
, and
140
. The channel controllers
175
and
176
perform exclusion/priority control for logical volumes
195
and
196
by checking each WWN
205
,
215
,
225
against Exclusion/Priority Control Tables
182
and
183
stored in advance in local memories
180
and
181
, respectively. For example, it is assumed that logical volume #
0
(
195
) is exclusively allocated for the OS #
2
(
150
) of the server #
0
(
110
) and logical volume #
1
(
196
) is exclusively allocated for the OS #
1
(
160
) of the server #
1
(
120
). Now, if the OS #
1
(
160
) erroneously accesses the logical volume #
0
(
195
), the data frame
140
for this access includes the WWN
225
that contains ID number 001, and thus the channel controller
176
recognizes that access permission for the volume is granted only to ID number 000 by referring to the Exclusion/Priority Control Table
183
. Then, the channel controller
176
notifies the OS #
1
(
160
) that the access has been rejected. As for the art regarding disk apparatus provided with such logical volume exclusion/priority control, there is a “Storage Subsystem” disclosed in JP-A-20447/2000.
Meanwhile, if a plurality of resources exist in a server, there are techniques of allocating and using these resources among a plurality of OSs. Using these techniques, it is made possible to make efficient use of server's CPUs, memories and other resources. As one example of these techniques, there is LPAR (Logical PARTioning). If this LPAR is applied, a Hypervisor
430
exists as software for managing a plurality of OSs, whereby it becomes feasible that CPUS, memories, and I/O devices are dynamically allocated to the OSs. For, for example, the server #
1
(
120
) shown in
FIG. 2
, there are four CPUs #
10
to #
13
. By applying the LPAR, it is possible to allocate CPU #
10
to the OS #
0
(
155
) and CPUs #
11
, #
12
, and #
13
to the OS #
1
(
160
). As for the main memory
125
, it is also possible to allocate its available space between the OS #
0
(
155
) and the OS #
1
(
160
) at an appropriate ratio. If there are a plurality of I/O adapters, they can be allocated to the OS #
0
(
155
) and the OS #
1
(
160
). However, because there is only one adapter in this example, the I/O adapter
128
is shared by both OSs. As regards this kind of art, there is a “Virtual Machine System” disclosed in JP-A-301795/1998.
Furthermore, in JP-A-112804/2000, description is made that in a virtual machine system wherein a plurality of OSs operate, sharing files, I/O instructions with OS number attached thereto are issued to the disk apparatus to prevent one OS from accessing a data file for another OS. Furthermore, In JP-A-140844/1992, description is made that the disclosed invention includes an I/O analysis means for analyzing I/O instructions issued from the OSs and the I/O analysis means appends an OS identifier to each I/O instruction it received, whereby exclusion control is accomplished during concurrent operation of a plurality of OSs.
As described above, the disk apparatus
170
distinguishes each WWN
205
,
215
,
225
, and thereby exclusion/priority control of the logical volumes
195
and
196
can be accomplished. Moreover, applying the LPAR makes it possible to efficiently allocate CPUs, memories, and I/O devices to a plurality of OSs in a server. However, generally, in comparison with the rate at which the number of CPUs in a server increases, the number of I/O devices does not increase so much, and in most cases, an I/O device is shared by the CPUs. This is because of cost saving and the physically large size of an I/O device having an interface to the external. If logical volume exclusion/priority control is performed under these conditions where an I/O device is shared, some problem making the exclusion/priority control impossible arises as below. For example, the OS #
0
(
155
) and the OS #
1
(
160
) exist in the same server shown in FIG.
2
and share the I/O adapter
128
. However, the data frames issued from both OSs include either WWN
125
or
225
, but these WWNs are assigned the same ID number “001” because both the OSs share the I/O adapter
128
. Therefore, the disk apparatus
170
cannot perform exclusion/priority control for these two data frames. Consequently, even if the logical volume #
0
(
195
) is exclusively allocated for the OS #
0
(
155
) and access permission for this volume is not granted to other OSs, it becomes possible for the OS #
1
(
160
) to access the logical volume #
0
(
195
) for the above reason.
On the assumption that a plurality of OSs running on a server share an I/O device and a storage system, it is an primary object of the present invention to improve the technique of performing the exclusion/priority control of logical volumes, each of which is exclusively allocated for one of the OSs, by providing the server side with a means for attaching OS-specific ID information to a data frame of command and the disk apparatus side with a means for deriving the OS-specific ID information from the data frame.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a technique by which tables containing the descriptions of a plurality of exclusion/priority control methods are created on the disk apparatus, thereby allowing selection out of the plurality of exclusion/priority control methods when performing such control.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a technique by which a plurality of exclusion/priority control methods are made available as instructions that the server can issue to the disk apparatus.
To solve the above problem, a virtual private volume control method is provided wherein servers on which a plurality of OSs run communicate with disk apparatus in such a manner that, when one of the OSs on a server issues an access command, the server assigns an ID number for identifying the OS a
Obara Kiyohiro
Odawara Hiroaki
Tanaka Atsushi
A. Marquez, Esq. Juan Carlos
Fisher Esq. Stanley P.
Hitachi , Ltd.
Reed Smith LLP
Vital Pierre M.
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