Abstract: Detecting and managing idle virtual storage servers (VSSs) on a host system. The host system may execute several VSSs, each VSS may comprise a virtual machine implementing a virtualized storage operating system and provide storage services for one or more clients. Detecting and managing idle virtual storage servers comprises three stages: 1) detecting idle VSSs, 2) suspending an idle VSS, and 3) un-suspending a suspended VSS. For the first stage, idle VSSs are detected using a first metric relating to network activity of the VSS, a second metric relating to storage object-related requests received by a VSS, and a third metric relating to inbound data for a VSS. For the second stage, an idle virtual storage server is suspended to release its resources while preserving its state for possible later use. For the third stage, a suspended virtual storage server may be unsuspended if a client attempts to access it.

Abstract: A virtual storage device of a virtual machine is stored onto a host based RAM drive to achieve performance gains. The virtual machine can be a virtual storage server or a simulated storage server. The disclosed technique can include using the host based RAM drive to store a data image file that represents a virtual disk based emulation of an NVRAM of a storage server. A network server is used to provide persistence across host reboots and to allow virtual machines to be moved between hosts.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates to a method and computer program for allocating inodes in a computing file system. The method, in one embodiment, includes determining whether all inodes in a first inode table have been initialized. Responsive to determining that all inodes in the first inode table have been initialized, a further inode table is created allocating additional inodes.