Namespace and storage management application infrastructure for use in management of resources in a storage system environment

Abstract

A namespace and storage management (NSM) application includes an infrastructure configured to enable efficient management of resources in a storage system environment. The NSM application executes on a NSM console and interacts with an NSM server to integrate namespace management and storage management in the storage system environment. The NSM server, in turn, interacts with one or more remote agents installed on host machines in the environment to convey application programming interface (API) function calls that enable remote management of the resources.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system, comprising:
 logic, at least a portion of which is implemented in hardware, the logic comprising a management application to integrate namespace management and storage management of resources in a storage system having a plurality of storage devices, wherein at least two of the storage devices utilize heterogeneous storage access protocols, the management application comprising:   an integrated management framework to generate a first set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for a first storage access protocol utilized by a first storage device in the storage system and a second set of APIs for a second storage access protocol utilized by a second storage device in the storage system, the integrated management framework to communicate with the first storage device with the first set of APIs and the second storage device with the second set of APIs.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1 , the integrated management framework to receive a first namespace from the first storage device and a second namespace from the second storage device, the first and second namespaces including pathnames for data stored in the first and second storage devices respectively, and the integrated management framework to generate a logical namespace based on the first and second namespaces, wherein the logical namespace includes pathnames that map to the data stored in the first and second storage devices. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 2 , wherein the logical namespace is accessible by a uniform storage access protocol. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 3 , wherein the uniform storage access protocol is different than the first or second storage access protocols. 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 1 , the integrated management framework to receive a request for data stored in the first storage device via a uniform storage access protocol and request the data stored in the first storage device with the first set of APIs, wherein the uniform storage access protocol is different than the first storage access protocol. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the first set of APIs adhere to the first storage access protocol. 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1 , wherein the second set of APIs adhere to the second storage access protocol. 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 1 , the heterogeneous storage access protocols to include a common Internet file system (CIFS) protocol or a network file system (NFS) protocol. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 1 , the integrated management framework to provide a credential collection function that requests credentials needed to access resources in the storage system. 
     
     
         10 . A computer-implemented method, comprising:
 receiving an operation directed to a group of managed objects, wherein the group of managed objects are units of storage hosted by a plurality of servers;   providing the operation and an indication of the group of managed objects to an application programming interface (API) toolkit;   decomposing the operation into a plurality of APIs directed to the group managed objects;   spawning one or more worker threads to manage the APIs; and   formatting the APIs to send to a namespace and management (NSM) server.   
     
     
         11 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 10 , comprising:
 translating the APIs into additional APIs; and   initiating an action on a remote client with the additional APIs, the action directed to the managed object.   
     
     
         12 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 11 , comprising forwarding the additional APIs to servers hosting the managed objects. 
     
     
         13 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 10 , wherein formatting the APIs includes packaging the APIs within extensible markup language (XML) tags. 
     
     
         14 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 10 , wherein the managed object comprises one or more shares. 
     
     
         15 . The computer-implemented method of  claim 10 , comprising providing a completion notification summarizing a thread operation result on at least one of the group of managed objects 
     
     
         16 . One or more computer-readable media to store instruction that when executed by a processor circuit causes the processor circuit to:
 receive an operation directed to a group of managed objects, wherein the group of managed objects are units of storage hosted by a plurality of servers;   provide the operation and an indication of the group of managed objects to an application programming interface (API) toolkit;   decompose the operation into a plurality of APIs directed to the group managed objects;   spawn one or more worker threads to manage the APIs; and   format the APIs to send to a namespace and management (NSM) server.   
     
     
         17 . The one or more computer-readable media of  claim 16 , with instructions to translate the APIs into additional APIs that initiate action by a remote agent directed to the managed objects. 
     
     
         18 . The one or more computer-readable media of  claim 17 , with instructions to forward the additional APIs to servers hosting the managed objects. 
     
     
         19 . The one or more computer-readable media of  claim 16 , with instructions to receive a copy of a namespace directory from a namespace server. 
     
     
         20 . The one or more computer-readable media of  claim 19 , with instructions to construct or change a pathname in the namespace directory.