Twin-tailed fail-over for fileservers maintaining full performance in the presence of a failure

Patent · Tue Feb 12 00:00:00 EST 2008

OSTI ID:950120

Coteus, Paul W ^[1]; Gara, Alan G ^[2]; Giampapa, Mark E ^[3]; Heidelberger, Philip ^[4]; Steinmacher-Burow, Burkhard D ^[2]

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1. Yorktown Heights, NY
2. Mount Kisco, NY
3. Irvington, NY
4. Cortlandt Manor, NY

A method for maintaining full performance of a file system in the presence of a failure is provided. The file system having N storage devices, where N is an integer greater than zero and N primary file servers where each file server is operatively connected to a corresponding storage device for accessing files therein. The file system further having a secondary file server operatively connected to at least one of the N storage devices. The method including: switching the connection of one of the N storage devices to the secondary file server upon a failure of one of the N primary file servers; and switching the connections of one or more of the remaining storage devices to a primary file server other than the failed file server as necessary so as to prevent a loss in performance and to provide each storage device with an operating file server.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, NY)
• Patent Number(s): 7,330,996
• Application Number: 10/468,990
• OSTI ID: 950120
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English