Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for maintaining cache coherency in a storage system

US6912669B2 · kind B2 · utility

12Cited by
8References
22Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateFeb 21, 2002
Grant dateJun 28, 2005
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 29, 2022

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F2212/312
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A method and apparatus for cache coherency in storage system is disclosed. The invention maintains cache coherency in the controller system of the storage system in a manner to minimize the performance degradation to a host system, and to allow the caches to be coherent without requiring data to be written to the backing disks. Each controller manages an area of memory on the partner controller, but the area is managed dynamically and is done with the information about the partner controller. A first controller determines which mirror cache line on a second controller to copy data into, and then mirrors the data from a first controller cache line to a second controller cache line. A message is sent from the first controller to the second controller informing the second controller of cache meta data associated with the mirror cache line so that the cache line may be added to the second controller's hash table.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.