Operating System Based Storage Method And System
An efficient data storage system and method that enables to utilize unexploited and available hardware resources in order to provide a reliable, fast, cost-effective and comprehensive solution capable of providing reliable data storages capabilities as well as flexibility adapted for various conditions and concerns obtainable by utilizing unexploited and available DAS thereby providing reliable data storage capabilities as well as flexibility adapted for various conditions and concerns. At least one target server that comprises a storage media and configured to run an operating system designated to host data accessible over a data plane (DP) network, at least one initiator server configured to run an operating system designated to access and expose a remote resource/s over the data plane (DP) network, and at least one orchestrator configured to interact with each of said servers and designated to control a control plane (CP) of said DP network, wherein a designated portion of the storage media of the target server is exposed to the DP network, and wherein the orchestrator is designated to utilize the designated portion of the storage media by orchestrating the storage stack components (SS) and the standard storage stack (SSS) of the operating system embedded within said servers, such that the initiator server is configured to interact with the target server via the DP network.
1 . A data storage system, comprising:
(i) at least one target server that comprises a storage media and configured to run an operating system designated to host data accessible over a data plane (DP) network,
(ii) at least one initiator server configured to run an operating system designated to access and expose a remote resource/s over the data plane (DP) network, and
(iii) at least one orchestrator configured to interact with each of said servers and designated to control a control plane (CP) of said DP network,
wherein a designated portion of the storage media of the target server is exposed to the DP network, and
wherein the orchestrator is designated to utilize the designated portion of the storage media by orchestrating the storage stack components (SS) and the standard storage stack (SSS) of the operating system embedded within said servers, such that the initiator server is configured to interact with the target server via the DP network.
2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein at least one initiator server is configured to interact with at least two target servers using a multipath connection.
3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the coordination between the initiator server and the target server is conducted using a CP orchestrator installed on each server.
4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the communication between either a target or initiator server accessible via the DP network and the orchestrator is done using a designated software component installed on each of said servers.
5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the initiator server is configured to utilize a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) storage stack component (SSC) configured to provide data redundancy originated from multiple designated portions of the storage media at multiple target servers.
6 . The system of claim 5 , wherein the RAID SSC is configured to provide data redundancy originated from combined multiple initiator paths originated from the designated portion of the storage media of at least two target servers.
7 . The system of claim 6 , wherein the target servers are located at different locations and wherein the orchestration is allocated across different resiliency domains.
8 . The system of claim 7 , wherein the orchestration allocated while considering different resiliency domains also considers maintaining system balance.
9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the orchestrator is configured to interact with the server using an administration protocol.
10 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the designated portion of the storage media is allocated using a logical volume manager (LVM) SSC.
11 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the storage media is solid-state drive (SSD) based.
12 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the storage media is storage class memory (SCM) based.
13 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the storage media is random access memory (RAM) based.
14 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the storage media is hard disk drive (HHD) based.
15 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the orchestrator is a physical controller.
16 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the orchestrator is a cloud-based service (SaaS).
17 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the operations on each server may be implemented, wholly or partially, by a data processing unit (DPU).
18 . A method for operating a data storage system, comprising the steps of:
(i) using at least one orchestrator configured to interact with at least one initiator server and with at least one target server, wherein said orchestrator is designated to control a control plane (CP) network,
(ii) using a resource management computation embedded within the orchestrator and configured to optimize the selection of various system's operation parameters,
(iii) using the orchestrator to control an operating system installed on the target server that hosts data accessible over a data plane (DP) network, wherein said target server comprises a storage media in order to utilize a persistent storage medium,
(iv) using the operating system's LVM in order to split the storage media to multiple partitions,
(v) using an operating system installed on at least one initiator server designated to access and consume the storage media partition/s over the DP network in order to utilize a remote media's capacity and performance.
19 . The method of claim 18 , wherein the storage media is configured to utilize a persistent storage medium.
20 . The method of claim 18 the operating system is configured to merge at least two network paths in order to utilize a single storage media partition as a single network device by utilizing a multipath component.