Data storage system employing dummy namespaces for discovery of NVMe namespace groups as protocol endpoints

摘要

A data storage system (DSS) in a cluster provides virtual-volume data storage to virtual-computing (VC) hosts using NVMe-oF storage interconnect. A DSS creates protocol endpoints (PEs) and corresponding namespace groups, each being a grouping of namespaces corresponding to virtual volumes (vVols) to be bound for access by a respective VC host, and each namespace being mapped to corresponding underlying physical storage. Each namespace group is initially created with a corresponding in-band discoverable dummy namespace. In response to in-band storage discovery commands from the VC hosts, and based on the existence of the dummy namespaces, the DSS responds with responses identifying the namespace groups. Then in response to subsequent vVol creation commands from the VC hosts, the DSS creates new namespaces in respective namespace groups and provides namespace identifiers for the new namespaces to the VC hosts for use in accessing data of the vVols.