Abstract: An apparatus in one embodiment comprises at least one processing device configured to detect a plurality of asynchronous events in a storage system, wherein the storage system is configured to provide respective individual asynchronous event notifications for the detected asynchronous events to a host device in response to receipt of corresponding asynchronous event requests from the host device. The at least one processing device is further configured to determine that multiple ones of the asynchronous events have been detected in the storage system without receipt of respective ones of the corresponding asynchronous event requests from the host device, and to provide to the host device in response to a particular one of the asynchronous event requests received from the host device a summary notification comprising information indicative of the multiple detected asynchronous events. The at least one processing device illustratively comprises at least one storage controller of the storage system.

Abstract: Bandwidth consumption for IO paths between a storage system and host may be managed. It may be determined whether there is congestion on a front-end port (FEP) link. For example, the storage system may monitor for a notification from the switch in accordance with a Fibre Channel (FC) protocol. If a notification is received indicating congestion on an FEP link, the bandwidth thresholds (BWTs) for one or more IO paths between the storage system and one or more hosts that include the FEP link may be reduced. The host port BWTs may continue to be reduced until a congestion notification communication has not been received for a predetermined amount of time, in response to which the host port BWTs for one or more host port links on IO paths that include the FEP link may be increased. Similar techniques may be employed for an FEP link determined to be faulty.

Abstract: A storage system such as a storage array in a data center calculates per-application power utilization based on monitored IOs. IOs generated by applications that are tolerant of rescheduling may be rescheduled to a time when power is less costly or more available. Storage array power consumption is reduced if all services host applications can tolerate greater IO latency without service level violations. Server power consumption is reduced if all services host applications can tolerate greater IO latency without service level violations. Power consumption by the servers, storage array, or both is reduced if power consumption reaches a predetermined level relative to available power.

Abstract: A temporal correlation may be determined between times specified according to different time standards on different storage network components. A host system may poll a storage system periodically. In response to each poll request, the storage system may respond with the current time on the storage system (CST) according to the time standard of the storage system. The host system may store temporal correlation information (TCI) associating the CST and the current time on the host system (CHT) according to the time standard of the host system. A data structure (TCT) may be provided, where each entry may specify TCI for a CST/CHT pair, the TCI including the CST, CHT and other information corresponding to the temporal correlation between the pair. The TCI may be used to correlate the time of a phenomenon according to the host system time standard to a time according to the storage system time standard.

Abstract: A method may include, in an operating system of an information handling system: responsive to a determination that a storage resource of the information handling system is experiencing a predictor of a failure of the storage resource, issuing a command to the storage resource to reload firmware code of the storage resource; responsive to the storage resource reloading the firmware code and reset of the storage resource following reloading of the firmware code, determining whether the predictor persists; and responsive to determining whether the predictor persists, performing a responsive action.

Abstract: An apparatus comprises at least one processing device that is configured to control delivery of input-output operations from a host device to a storage system over selected ones of a plurality of paths through a network. The at least one processing device is further configured to generate a plurality of authentication tokens over time utilizing seed information of the host device, and for each of one or more of the input-output operations, to incorporate a particular one of the authentication tokens into the input-output operation, to send the input-output operation to the storage system, and to receive an indication from the storage system, responsive to the input-output operation sent to the storage system, as to whether or not the authentication token incorporated into the input-output operation matches a corresponding authentication token generated by the storage system. The at least one processing device illustratively comprises at least a portion of the host device.

Abstract: A method comprises associating a first logical storage device with a first host device, wherein data encrypted using a private key of the first host device is written to the first logical storage device, generating a copy of the first logical storage device, associating the copy of the first logical storage device with a second logical storage device, wherein data encrypted using a private key of a second host device is written to the second logical storage device, and providing the second host device with access to an encrypted version of a public key of the first host device, encrypted using a public key of the second host device, to allow the second host device to obtain the public key of the first host device. The second host device can thereby access particular data of the second logical storage device written using the private key of the first host device.

Abstract: A storage system may assign a different encryption key to each logical storage unit (LSU) of a storage system. For each LSU, the encryption key of the LSU may be shared only with host systems authorized to access data of the LSU. In response to a read request for a data portion received from a host application executing on the host system, encryption metadata for the data portion may be accessed. If it is determined from the encryption metadata that the data portion is encrypted, the data encryption metadata for the data portion may be further analyzed to determine the encryption key for the data portion. The data may be retrieved from the storage system, for example, by performance of a direct read operation. The retrieved data may be decrypted, and the decrypted data may be returned to the requesting application.

Abstract: A storage node that maintains separate storage objects for storage of data for different host applications protects those storage objects against ransomware attacks by recognizing variations in data reducibility. Separate data reducibility profiles are generated for each protected storage object. In response to new data being written to one of the protected storage objects, the reducibility of the new data is compared with the data reducibility profile of the protected storage object to which the new data is being written. A mismatch indicates a ransomware attack. Counter-measures may include halting generation or overwriting of snaps, halting replication, and halting backups of the storage object, and generating ransomware attack alert messages. Decryption keys are provided to the storage node if new data is normally provided in an encrypted state.

Abstract: An apparatus in one embodiment includes at least one processing device, with the at least one processing device comprising a processor and a memory coupled to the processor. The at least one processing device is configured to monitor performance of respective ones of a plurality of paths for accessing a logical storage device, and responsive to detection of at least one specified condition in the monitored performance relating to at least a subset of the paths, to switch the logical storage device from utilization of a first access protocol to utilization of a second access protocol different than the first access protocol. For example, in some embodiments, the at least one processing device is configured to switch the logical storage device from a SCSI access protocol to an NVMe access protocol, and vice versa, responsive to congestion, errors or other detected performance conditions currently impacting one of the access protocols.

Abstract: Processing I/O operations may include: receiving, at a data storage system, an I/O operation from a host, wherein the I/O operation is directed to a logical address and includes an I/O tag used in connection with performing data reduction processing for first data stored at the logical address; and performing processing to back up a data set including the first data stored at the logical address. The processing may include: sending, from the data storage system to a backup application, the data set and hints regarding the first data set, wherein the hints include a first hint determined in accordance with the I/O tag from the host; performing, in accordance with the hints, data reduction processing of the data set to generate a second data set; and storing the second data set on one or more backup storage devices.

Abstract: An apparatus comprises a host device configured to communicate over a network with a storage system. The host device comprises a multi-path input-output driver configured to control delivery of input-output operations from the host device to the storage system over selected ones of a plurality of paths through the network. The multi-path input-output driver is further configured to collect information characterizing input-output patterns for each of a plurality of different applications executing on the host device, and to provide the collected information to a machine learning system. The machine learning system utilizes the collected information to generate one or more application predictions based at least in part on analysis of observed input-output patterns. The collected information in some embodiments comprises statistical distributions of numbers of input-output operations having payload sizes falling into specified ranges over a given time period.

Abstract: Application discovery from access patterns is disclosed. Access histories from multiple servers are collected and stored at a warehouse, which may be part of a data protection system. A time series analysis is performed on the access history to identify consistency groups and applications from the perspective of devices and storage arrays. Data protection operations such as backup operations can then be performed on the basis of devices or storage in storage arrays or other arrangements that pertain to specific consistency groups or to specific applications.

Abstract: An apparatus in one embodiment includes at least one processing device configured to receive at least one notification from a switch of a switch fabric coupled between one or more host devices and a storage system, to select a particular one of a plurality of zoning sets based at least in part on the one or more received notifications, and to send an indication of the selected zoning set to the switch. The indication of the selected zoning set illustratively comprises a command that instructs the switch to alter its zoning configuration in accordance with the selected zoning set. In some embodiments, the processing device comprises a data protection appliance coupled to a storage area network that includes the switch fabric. The switch may comprise a Fibre Channel (FC) switch of an FC switch fabric, and the notification may comprise a fabric performance impact notification (FPIN) generated by the switch.

Abstract: Snapshots are processed without holding all write operations while the snapshots are being activated. Rather than holding all write operations until snapshots are activated, write operations may be allowed to proceed. Snapshot write processing may be temporarily suspended while the snapshots are being activated, including snapshot metadata being updated, while write operations received while the snapshots are being activated are logged. After snapshots have been activated for all logical LSUs for which snapshots were instructed to be activated, the logging of write operations may be stopped, and the logged write entries processed to determine whether any of the logged write operations require updating snapshot information of any logical storage elements (LSEs) of the LSUs. While the logged write operations are being processed, any write operations received from a host for an LSE having a logged write operation may be held until the held operation, or all held operations are processed.

Abstract: A host system may include a computational processing unit implemented using hardware and a hardware virtualizing and remote sharing (HVRS) server that virtualizes and shares the computational processing unit with other host systems, where the host system is directly connected to an internal fabric of a storage system. A storage system interface (SSI) of the host system may be directly connected to the internal fabric of the storage system and also directly connected to a same peripheral device interconnect as the CPU, the computational processing unit and/or other hardware resources of the host system. The SSI may communicate with storage resources of the storage system using remote direct memory access (RDMA) and zero-copy technologies. Such a host system may provide the storage capacity and data protection services of a storage system at relatively fast speeds e.g., comparable to non-volatile RAM on a host system configured for use as persistent memory.

Abstract: Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to traffic class management of NVMe (non-volatile memory express) traffic. One or more virtual controllers for at least one host adapter (HA) of a storage device are generated. Each virtual controller is assigned a unique controller identifier (ID) Additionally, one or more input/output (IO) queues for each virtual controller are established. Further, IO workloads are processed via each IO queue.

Abstract: An information handling system may include at least one processor; a plurality of physical storage resources; and a network interface configured to communicatively couple the information handling system to a plurality of host systems; wherein the information handling system is configured to: determine a likelihood of compromise for each of the plurality of host systems; and in response to the likelihood of compromise for a particular host system exceeding a threshold likelihood, carry out a remedial action with respect to the particular host system, wherein the remedial action includes restricting access from the particular host system to the plurality of physical storage resources.

Abstract: An apparatus comprises at least one processing device. The at least one processing device is configured to detect a write pressure condition by identifying at least a first set of one or more logical storage devices having a first service level objective for which at least one performance metric has a value that exceeds a specified threshold, and responsive to the detected write pressure condition, to identify at least a second set of one or more logical storage devices, having a second service level objective that is lower than the first service level objective, and that are contributing to the detected write pressure condition. The at least one processing device is further configured, for each of the identified logical storage devices of the second set, to provide a write pressure indication to control throttling of write operations directed to that logical storage device of the second set.

Abstract: A host device is configured to communicate over a network with a storage system. The host device comprises a multi-path input-output (MPIO) driver configured to control delivery of input-output (IO) operations from the host device to the storage system over selected ones of a plurality of paths through the network. The MPIO driver is further configured to send one or more requests to the storage system for data corresponding to performance of one or more switch fabrics in the network, and to receive the data corresponding to the performance of the one or more switch fabrics from the storage system. The MPIO driver is also configured to identify one or more performance issues associated with at least one of the selected ones of the plurality of paths based on the received data, and to manage one or more of the input-output operations responsive to the identified performance issues.