| 摘要 |
A method and an apparatus for performing volume replication using a unified architecture are provided. Each volume has an exclusive volume log table (VLT) and an exclusive volume block update table (VBUT). The VLT is mainly used for recording the relationship between two volumes of a mirroring pair, and the VBUT is used for tracking the state of each data block of the volume itself. By means of the cross operations and applications between the VLT and the VBUT, various volume replication processes such as volume copying and volume mirroring can be enabled under a unified architecture. Specifically, for each volume, different replication relationships with other volumes can be handled merely by administering its two exclusive tables. Hence, the method and the apparatus provided by the present invention can advantageously simplify the architecture for synchronization replication and reduce the burdens of administrating tables, thereby making the operation of a storage system more efficient. |
