Snapshot Module In The Storage Server Design And Implementation

Recent years the rapid development of computer network results in more and more information being digitalized. The traditional storage system has lost the ability to satisfy enterprises' needs for high reliability, good expandability and security. Accordingly, SAN appears as a new network storage concept. On the one hand, it can provide fast and convenient storage resources for the application; On the other hand, it can share the storage resources and can implement centralized management, it has become the ideal storage management and application pattern.In the storage server based on SAN, Snapshot module is the one of the most important components in the storage server. The author' s corporation always focuses the relevant techniques about SAN, and develops the main production - the storage server based on SAN. The author attended the development of the product and worked on the snapshot module.During the project development, the author spent much time to research the techniques about SAN, analyzed the popular implements of the snapshot. Firstly, the author introduced the key concepts, all components and RAID level of SAN, explained the architecture and each key modules of the storage server. Then he discussed the current implementation about snapshot, analyzed the relevant technical difficulties in the snapshot module, and expatiated the design and implementation of the snapshot module based on the customer requirements. Then he tested the actual performances of the module and analyzed the test results. In the test, he focused on the influence of this module on main volume' s read/write performance. At last, he summarized the advantages and disadvantages about this module and discussed the improvement methods and the future functions base on the relevant techniques.