VIRTUALIZED STORAGE SYSTEM AND METHOD OF OPERATING IT

摘要

There is provided a virtualized storage system and a method of operating thereof. The system comprises a plurality of physical storage devices controlled by a plurality of storage control devices constituting a storage control layer, said layer operatively coupled to the plurality of physical storage devices and a plurality of hosts. The storage control layer comprises: a first virtual layer interfacing with the plurality of hosts, operable to represent a logical address space characterized by logical block addresses and available to said plurality of hosts, said first virtual layer characterized by an Internal Virtual Address Space (IVAS) and further operable, responsive to a configuration or I/O request addressed to one or more logical block addresses, to provide a translation of said logical block addresses into respective IVAS addresses; and a second virtual layer interfacing with the plurality of physical storage devices, operable to represent an actual physical space available to said plurality of hosts and characterized by a Physical Virtual Address Space (PVAS), wherein each address in said Physical Virtual Address Space has at least one corresponding address in the Internal Virtual Address Space; and wherein said second virtual layer is operable to provide further translation of said respective IVAS addresses into addresses in the physical address space.