Computer system and storage management method

Abstract

A storage management system, where when adding a specified area of storage media to a storage tiered in response to a request from a host computer, a management computer: obtains storage media information, including I/O frequency of a data storage area of a volume(s) as well as performance information and structure information of the storage media, from the storage apparatus; identifies one or more storage media, which have not been allocated to any of the volumes with the I/O performance in excess of the I/O frequency, on the basis of the structure information of the storage media so that the data storage area of the volume(s), to which a specified storage in the storage tiered is allocated, would achieve a specified I/O performance target; and issues an instruction to the storage apparatus to create a storage tiered by using the identified storage media.

1 . A computer system comprising a storage system and a management computer configured to manage the storage system:
 wherein the storage system comprises:
 a plurality of storage medias providing storage areas which are managed as a plurality of tiers each of which with different I/O performance; and 
 a control unit configured to allocate the storage area from the storage tier to a volume to store data indicated by a write request from a host, 
   wherein the management computer comprises:
 a control unit configured to:
 obtain storage media information managing information of structure and I/O performance of the storage medias, and I/O performance information of data stored or to be stored in the plurality of storage medias, 
 identify a storage area of storage media with the lowest I/O performance from among the storage areas with higher I/O performance than the obtained I/O performance of the data, on a basis of the obtained storage media information, and 
 issue an instruction to the storage system to create the storage tiers by using the identified storage area of the storage media. 
 
   
     
     
         2 . The computer system according to the  claim 1 , wherein the I/O performance information of data stored or to be stored is input by the user. 
     
     
         3 . The computer system according to the  claim 1 , wherein the structure of the storage tiered is calculated by estimating the IOPS distribution based on the capacity of the storage tiered requested by the user or lops pattern information defined in advance. 
     
     
         4 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein the control unit for the management computer is configured to obtain the I/O frequency of the data based on designated I/O frequency distribution. 
     
     
         5 . The computer system according to  claim 4 , wherein when the capacity of the storage media identified from the structure information of the storage media is less than the calculated capacity constituting the storage tiers, the control unit for the management computer is configured to identify the storage media with the next lower I/O performance based on the structure information of the storage media and to calculate a capacity that satisfies the I/O frequency with the I/O performance. 
     
     
         6 . The computer system according to  claim 5 , wherein when migrating data in the data storage area of an existing storage tier to the storage tiers to be newly created for which the creation instruction has been issued, the control unit for the management computer is configured to migrate the data, in descending order of the I/O frequency of the data, to the storage tiers to be newly created for which the creation instruction has been issued. 
     
     
         7 . The computer system according to  claim 6 , wherein the I/O frequency distribution corresponding to the I/O frequency information of the data storage area provided from the storage apparatus includes the data storage area with higher I/O frequency than the I/O performance of the storage media, and the control unit for the management computer is configured to increase that I/O frequency of the data storage area by a specified value and to allocate the storage area with the I/O performance equal to or higher than the I/O performance of the storage media. 
     
     
         8 . The computer system according to  claim 7 , wherein when the capacity of the data storage area corresponding to the I/O frequency distribution has already been calculated with regard to the storage media included in the storage media information, but the capacity of the data storage area corresponding to the I/O frequency distribution cannot be satisfied with the storage media of the storage apparatus, the control unit for the management computer is configured to display a screen clearly specifying the storage media of the storage apparatus, which is short of capacity and cannot satisfy the capacity of the data storage area corresponding to the I/O frequency distribution of the storage media, on a display screen. 
     
     
         9 . The computer system according to  claim 8 , wherein when there is a certain constraint on a tier number representing the performance of the relevant tier in the storage tiers when creating the storage tiers which satisfies the I/O frequency distribution, the control unit for the management computer is configured to select the storage media which constitute a tier having performance equal to or higher than that of the tier corresponding to the constraint. 
     
     
         10 . The computer system according to  claim 8 , wherein when there is a certain constraint on the number of storage media constituting a storage tier when creating the storage tiers which satisfy the I/O frequency distribution, the control unit for the management computer is configured to select the storage media as many as or less than the number of tiers corresponding to the constraint. 
     
     
         11 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein the volume is a virtual volume to which a storage area is allocated when data are written from the host computer, and the control unit for the management computer is configured to obtain information indicating whether a capacity of a pool in which the storage area is allocated from the host computer to the data storage area of the volume is increasing or not. 
     
     
         12 . The computer system according to  claim 11 , wherein when the information of a growth state of the pool indicates that the capacity is growing, the control unit for the management computer is configured to obtain only the storage media information of the storage media whose I/O performance is equal to or higher than the I/O performance of the storage media constituting the pool. 
     
     
         13 . The computer system according to  claim 12 , wherein when migrating data of the pool to the storage tiers to be newly created for which the creation instruction has been issued to the storage apparatus, the control unit for the management computer is configured to migrate the data of the pool in descending order of the I/O frequency of the data to the storage media of a highest-level tier and to terminate the migration of the data when all the storage media with higher I/O performance than that of the storage media of the pool are allocated to the storage tiers. 
     
     
         14 . The computer system according to  claim 13 , wherein when a capacity of the storage tiers in which data are not stored is larger than a specified capacity when migrating the data to the storage tiers, the control unit for the management computer is configured to migrate data stored in the storage media of the pool to another volume in the same storage media and to delete the volume where the data are not stored. 
     
     
         15 . The computer system according to  claim 11 , wherein when the information of a growth state of the pool indicates growth completion when migrating the data of the pool to the storage tiers to be newly created for which the creation instruction has been issued to the storage apparatus, the control unit for the management computer is configured to migrate data of an allocated capacity of the storage media with higher I/O performance than that of the storage media of the pool in descending order of the I/O frequency of the data to the storage media of a highest-level tier, and to migrate data of an allocated capacity of the storage media with lower I/O performance than that of the storage media of the pool in ascending order of the I/O frequency to the storage media of a lower-level tier. 
     
     
         16 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein as triggered by receipt of a notice that an allocated storage tier in which a storage area is allocated to the data storage area of the volume or volumes from the storage apparatus is short of capacity, the control unit for the management computer is configured to obtain a specified capacity to be added to the allocated storage tiers, the storage media information stored in the storage apparatus, structure information of the allocated storage tiers, and the I/O frequency distribution of data of the allocated storage tiers from the storage apparatus and to obtain a policy for adding the specified capacity to the allocated storage tiers from the host computer; to calculate a capacity of the data storage area corresponding to the I/O frequency distribution in ascending order of the I/O performance of the storage media with respect to the I/O frequency distribution of the storage tiers obtained by adding the specified capacity to the allocated storage tiers, to calculate an additional capacity by subtracting a capacity of an actual structure of the allocated storage tiers from the capacity of the storage media constituting the calculated storage tiers, and to issue instruction to the storage apparatus to create a storage tiers to which the calculated additional capacity is added. 
     
     
         17 . The computer system according to  claim 16 , wherein when the capacity of the storage media with low I/O performance is less than the calculated additional capacity, the control unit for the management computer is configured to calculate the structure of the storage pier pool by allocating the capacity of the storage media with the next lower performance. 
     
     
         18 . The computer system according to  claim 15 , wherein the control unit for the management computer is configured to:
 calculate an ideal capacity of each storage media equivalent to the capacity of the data storage area corresponding to the I/O frequency distribution of the storage tiers;   calculate a ratio of the ideal capacity to the storage media with low I/O performance in the I/O frequency distribution;   calculate the capacity of the storage tiers obtained by adding the additional capacity to the allocated storage tiers;   calculate an ideal structural ratio of the storage tiers obtained by adding the additional capacity to the allocated storage tiers; and   calculate an ideal additional capacity by subtracting the capacity of the actual structure of the allocated storage tiers based on the ideal structure calculated ratio.   
     
     
         19 . The computer system according to  claim 1 , wherein the control unit for the storage apparatus is configured to manage a substantive real volume of another storage apparatus connected to the storage apparatus as an external volume of the storage apparatus by associating the real volume of the other storage apparatus with the volume of the storage apparatus; and
 wherein the control unit for the management computer is configured to:
 obtain the storage media information, including information of the volume of the storage apparatus and information of the external volume, and the I/O frequency distribution corresponding to the I/O frequency information of the data storage area of the volume; and 
 calculate the capacity of the data storage area corresponding to the I/O frequency distribution in ascending order of the I/O performance of the storage media on the basis of the storage media information and issue an instruction to the storage apparatus to create the storage tiers by using the calculated capacity of the storage media. 
   
     
     
         20 . A storage management method for a computer system comprising a storage system and a management computer configured to manage the storage system:
 wherein the storage system comprises:
 a plurality of storage medias providing storage areas which are managed as a plurality of tiers each of which with different I/O performance; and 
 a control unit configured to allocate the storage area from the storage tier to a volume to store data indicated by a write request from a host, 
   wherein the management computer comprises a control unit,   wherein the storage management unit comprises the following steps executed by the control unit:
 obtaining storage media information managing information of structure and I/O performance of the storage medias, and I/O performance information of data stored or to be stored in the plurality of storage medias, 
 identifying a storage area of storage media with the lowest I/O performance from among the storage areas with higher I/O performance than the obtained I/O performance of the data, on a basis of the obtained storage media information, and 
 issuing an instruction to the storage system to create the storage tiers by using the identified storage area of the storage media.