Method and apparatus for providing high-performance and highly-scalable storage acceleration

摘要

A method and apparatus of providing high performance and highly scalable storage acceleration includes a cluster node-spanning RAM disk (CRD) interposed in the data path between a storage server and a computer server. The CRD addresses performance problems with applications that need to access large amounts of data and are negatively impacted by the latency of classic disk-based storage systems. It solves this problem by placing the data the application needs into a large (with respect to the server's main memory) RAM-based cache where it can be accessed with extremely low latency, hence improving the performance of the application significantly. The CRD is implemented using a novel architecture which has very significant cost and performance advantages over existing or alternative solutions.

主权项

1. A storage system, comprising:
a cache system disposed in a network path between, a storage server and a compute server, the cache system further comprising: a plurality of cache devices, each cache device comprising:
a processor;a data memory; anda network interface, wherein each cache device of the plurality of cache devices is configured to act as a proxy server to maintain a directory of a location of the cache device of the plurality of cache devices in which a data record is stored; and, one of the plurality of cache devices is designated as a default device to respond to a request from the compute server and to communicate with other cache devices of the plurality of cache devices so that: responsive to the request for the stored data record, the stored data record is sent directly from the cache device in which the data record is stored to the compute server, providing that the data record of the request is stored in one or more of the plurality of cache devices, and wherein the cache device intercepting the storage operation request has a network address that is a virtual address of a proxy computer application program operating on the cache system.