Method for selectively enabling and disabling read caching in a storage subsystem

US8874854B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• International Business Machines Corporation · US

Inventors

• Lee Charles La Frese · Tucson, US
• Joshua D. Martin · Tucson, US
• Justin Miller · Monte Sereno, US
• Vernon W. Miller · Tucson, US
• James Russell Thompson · Knoxville, US
• Yan Xu · Tucson, US
• Olga Yiparaki · Tucson, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jul 30, 2007
• Grant date: Oct 28, 2014
• Expiry date: Jan 23, 2030

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F12/0888
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A mechanism for selectively disabling and enabling read caching based on past performance of the cache and current read/write requests. The system improves overall performance by using an autonomic algorithm to disable read caching for regions of backend disk storage (i.e., the backstore) that have had historically low cache hit ratios. The result is that more cache becomes available for workloads with larger hit ratios, and less time and machine cycles are spent searching the cache for data that is unlikely to be there.