Method and system for enhancing fibre channel loop resiliency for a mass storage enclosure by increasing component redundancy and using shunt elements and intelligent bypass management

Abstract

A reliable and fault-tolerant multi-peripheral-device enclosure for use in high-availability computer systems. The reliable and fault-tolerant multi-peripheral-device enclosure uses a three-tiered port bypass control strategy for diagnosing and isolating malfunctioning peripheral devices within the multi-peripheral-device enclosure, and uses a similar a three-tiered port bypass control strategy for isolation of the entire multi-peripheral-device enclosure from a communications medium that interconnects the multi-peripheral-device enclosure with one or more host computers.

Description

[0001] The present invention relates to multi-peripheral-device enclosures, and, in particular, to a method and system for increasing the reliability and availability of multi-peripheral-device enclosures by incorporating control elements for isolating components.[0002] The fibre channel ("FC") is an architecture and protocol for a data communication network for interconnecting a number of different combinations of computers and peripheral devices. The FC supports a variety of upper-level protocols, including the small computer systems interface ("SCSI") protocol. A computer or peripheral device is linked to the network through an FC port and copper wires or optical fibres. An FC port includes a transceiver and an interface controller, and the computer peripheral device in which the FC port is contained is called a "host." The FC port exchanges data with the host via a local data bus, such as a peripheral computer interface ("PCI") bus. The interface controller conducts lower-level ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0066] During the past decade, it has become increasingly popular for computer peripheral manufacturers to include a number of different peripheral devices within a single enclosure. One example of such enclosures is a redundant array of inexpensive disks ("RAID"). By grouping a number of different peripheral devices within a single enclosure, the peripheral manufacturer can achieve certain economies of manufacture. For example, all of the peripheral devices within the enclosure may share one or more common power supplies, cooling apparati, and interconnect media. Such enclosures may provide a collective set of resources greater than the resource represented by individual peripheral devices. In addition, individual peripheral devices may be swapped in and out of the enclosure while the other peripheral devices within the enclosure continue to operate, a process known as hot-swapping. Finally, banks of such enclosures may be used for storage redundancy and mirroring in order to achieve economical, highly available resources.

Problems solved by technology

The HAE is highly redundant.

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