ACTIVE-ACTIVE SUPPORT OF VIRTUAL STORAGE MANAGEMENT IN A STORAGE AREA NETWORK(SAN)

摘要

Methods and apparatuses are provided for active-active support of virtual storage management in a storage area network (“SAN”). When a storage manager (that manages virtual storage volumes) of the SAN receives data to be written to a virtual storage volume from a computer server, the storage manager determines whether the writing request may result in updating a mapping of the virtual storage volume to a storage system. When the writing request does not involve updating the mapping, which happens most of the time, the storage manager simply writes the data to the storage system based on the existing mapping. Otherwise, the storage manager sends an updating request to another storage manager for updating a mapping of the virtual storage volume to a storage volume. Subsequently, the storage manager writes the data to the corresponding storage system based on the mapping that has been updated by the another storage manager.