Command portal for executing non-standard storage subsystem commands

摘要

A command portal enables a host system to send non-standard or “vendor-specific” storage subsystem commands to a storage subsystem using an operating system (OS) device driver that does not support or recognize such non-standard commands. The architecture thereby reduces or eliminates the need to develop custom device drivers that support the storage subsystem's non-standard commands. To execute non-standard commands using the command portal, the host system embeds the non-standard commands in blocks of write data, and writes these data blocks to the storage subsystem using standard write commands supported by standard OS device drivers. The storage subsystem extracts and executes the non-standard commands. The non-standard commands may alternatively be implied by the particular target addresses used. The host system may retrieve execution results of the non-standard commands using standard read commands. The host-side functionality of the command portal may be embodied in an API that is made available to application developers.

主权项

1. A method of communicating non-standard storage commands from a host system to a storage system without the need for a special driver that supports non-standard storage commands, the method comprising:
on the host system, discovering, via interaction with the storage system, a set of target addresses of the storage system used for triggering execution of non-standard storage commands; on the host system, selecting, from the set of target addresses, a target address that corresponds to a non-standard storage command, wherein each target address in the set of target addresses is configured to correspond to only one particular non-standard storage command; and causing the storage system to execute the non-standard storage command by sending a write data command from the host system to the selected target address of the storage system thereby causing the storage system to execute the write data command, the write data command comprising write data, and the write command being sent via execution, on the host system, of a driver that does not recognize the non-standard storage command or the discovery of the target address, wherein the non-standard storage command is not embedded in the write data command.