JPH064450A - Information conversion processor and information transfer control method - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Object] To provide an information transfer processing device for verifying the conversion process in the conversion process of transfer information transferred between the above device and a lower device. In an information conversion processing device that is provided between an information processing device and one or more storage devices and controls transfer between the information processing device and the storage devices, a logic from the information processing device to the storage device is provided. Information generating section for converting and outputting general transfer information to physical transfer information, and a check section for verifying whether the conversion performed by the physical information generating section is correctly converted and outputting a verification result Have and.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a computer external storage system. The present invention particularly relates to an information conversion processing device and conversion information conversion control method for transfer information between both interfaces in a system having an upper interface and a lower interface.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in an information transfer control system in a system for transferring information between a host device such as a host computer and a lower device such as a magnetic disk device, a host interface control unit transfers input transfer information. It is realized by converting the information into information corresponding to the device to be output and then outputting the information via the lower interface control unit.

A conventional technique will be described with reference to FIGS. 3, 4 and 5.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an external storage system having a plurality of magnetic disk devices as lower devices, which is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 62-131321.
In this conventional example, by converting the logical address information, which is the transfer information from the host device, into the physical address information corresponding to the magnetic disk device, it is possible to access the plurality of magnetic disk devices from the host device.

In FIG. 3, reference numeral 10 denotes an interface control unit, which controls an interface between a host device and an external storage system. Reference numeral 5 denotes a micro program control unit, which controls the entire system. Reference numeral 31 denotes a disk control unit, which controls an interface between a plurality of lower-level magnetic disk devices and the system. Reference numeral 3 denotes a magnetic disk device, and a plurality of magnetic disk devices can be provided. A storage unit 7 temporarily stores transfer information. A storage control unit 6 controls access to the storage unit 7. Correspondence between a logical address instructed by an external device and a physical address of each magnetic disk device 3 is preset in the micro program control unit 5.

Data write / read request information (hereinafter referred to as I / O request information), which is transfer request information from the host device, is input to the microprogram controller 5 via the host interface controller 10. The high-order I / O request information is converted into high-order I / O request information corresponding to the magnetic disk device by the microprogram controller 5.
Further, the data in the transfer information is temporarily stored in the storage unit 7 via the storage control unit 6 under the control of the microprogram control unit 5 and converted into the transfer information corresponding to the magnetic disk device 3. It In this way, the transfer information from the higher-level device is converted into information corresponding to the lower-level device, and then transferred via the disk control unit 31.

Here, the conversion operation of the transfer information of the prior art will be described. First, the microprogram control unit 5 interprets the seek command, which is the logical address information sent from the higher-level device 1 to the magnetic disk device 3 as one large-capacity magnetic disk device, via the interface control unit 10. To do. The seek command is converted into a device address, a cylinder address and a track address of the physical address information, and the specified seek instruction is issued to each disk control unit 31 via the bus. Each disk control unit 31
First selects the corresponding magnetic disk device 3 according to the device address. Next, each disk control unit 31
Instructs the magnetic disk device 3 to start the seek operation for the cylinder designated by the cylinder address and select the track designated by the track address after the seek operation is completed.

Next, the microprogram controller 5
Decode the search command sent from the host device.
Data transfer is started from the host device, the record number is calculated, and the storage unit controller 6 is notified. For reading and writing of data, data for one track of each magnetic disk device 3 is temporarily stored in the storage unit 7, and data is read or written from each magnetic disk device 3. At this time, the disk control unit detects the reading and writing of data for one track, notifies the microprogram control unit 5, and switches to the next track.

According to the above method, the logical address information, which is the transfer information from the host device, can be converted into the physical address information corresponding to the magnetic disk device.

Next, another conventional example will be described. In Figure 4,
FIG. 1 shows a block diagram of a system having a plurality of magnetic disk devices as lower devices, which is described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 01-151070.

In FIG. 4, a control block 8 controls the entire system. A data flow control unit 51 controls the interface between the host device 1 and the buffers in the system. A data flow control unit 52 controls the interface between a plurality of magnetic disk devices 3, which are lower devices, and buffers in the system. Reference numerals 53 and 54 are buffers for temporarily storing transfer information.

The data read / write operation will be described with reference to this conventional example. The host device 1 sends a data read command together with the data start address and data length to the control block 8 through the bus. In the control block 8, the physical address (position) to be actually accessed by each magnetic disk device (sometimes in some cases) is calculated based on this start address and data length, and each device's physical address (position) is determined. Generate control signals (information) on the control bus. At the same time, the data flow control block 51
Is instructed to the first buffer block to be used via the control line. The disk device 3 which has received the data reading instruction by the physical address corresponding to the disk device in the control block 8 immediately starts access and the data reading operation is realized.

Next, in the data write operation, the host device 1 sends a data write command to the control block 8 through the control line together with the storage start address and the data length. The control block 8 issues a control signal to each disk device by the same processing as at the time of reading, and at the same time, instructs the data flow control blocks 51 and 52 of the corresponding session and the used block, thereby transmitting the data. It realizes the write operation.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a transfer information conversion method in the above-mentioned conventional technique. The transfer information is converted when the transfer information is I / O request information from the higher-level device.
In FIG. 5, reference numeral 24 denotes a main control unit, which is an upper I / O unit.
In order to perform control in accordance with a command (read / write request, etc.) of the O request information, a command interpreting & executing section 25 for interpreting the command and instructing execution, and the upper I / O
O request information to the lower I corresponding to the transfer destination disk device
And a physical information generation unit 26-1 that generates / O request information. Further, the main controller 24 also controls the entire system.

The physical information generator 26-1 is provided with a LUN (Logical Unit Number) and LBA (Logic
al block address), length (data length), and the like, physical address information, which is lower I / O request information corresponding to the disk device, is generated from higher I / O request information. This enables information transfer between the upper device and the lower device.

[0016]

These conventional techniques are
In either case, by converting the transfer information from the upper device into the transfer information corresponding to the lower device, it is possible to transfer information between the upper device and the lower device.

However, in the above-mentioned conventional technique, there is a problem that the information conversion unit does not have a means for verifying the information conversion result, and a malfunction in the information conversion process cannot be detected. That is, in the transfer information conversion method of the conventional technology,
It was possible to detect an error on the transmission path of the output information, which is the conversion result, by using the redundant data added to the conversion information, but it may be the malfunction of the information conversion unit or the failure of other parts. It is impossible to detect what. Also,
When the redundant data is generated from the information conversion result, even if an error occurs in the information conversion unit or before the information conversion unit, it is not even possible to detect the error.

For example, when adding parity data to redundant data, the parity generation circuit generates parity data for this erroneously generated physical information. And
The parity adding circuit adds the parity data to the physical information and sends it to the transmission line. The parity check circuit having received this checks the physical information and the parity data, and if there is no parity error, it is determined that the physical information has been sent without error. As a result, there arises a problem that an error in the physical information and an erroneous operation of the physical information generating unit that generated the physical information cannot be detected.

An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems and provide an information conversion processing apparatus for verifying whether or not the conversion processing is correctly converted.

Another object of the present invention is to provide an information transfer control method capable of controlling information transfer according to the error detection result.

[0021]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention is provided between an information processing device and one or more storage devices, and controls transfer between the information processing device and the storage devices. In the information conversion processing device, a physical information generation unit that converts logical transfer information from the information processing device to the storage device into physical transfer information and outputs the physical transfer information.
And a check unit that verifies whether the conversion performed by the physical information generation unit is correctly converted and outputs the verification result.

The physical information generating unit further includes a logical information generating unit for converting the physical transfer information output from the physical information generating unit into logical transfer information, and the checking unit controls the information processing device for the storage device. By comparing the logical transfer information with the logical transfer information from the logical information generation unit, it is verified whether or not the conversion performed in the physical information generation unit is correctly converted, and the comparison result Is output as the verification result. The logical information generation unit may convert physical transfer information from the storage device into logical transfer information and output the logical transfer information to the information processing device. The physical information generation unit and the logical information generation unit can respectively convert a correspondence relationship between physical transfer information and logical transfer information based on a predetermined mapping table.

The check unit has a plurality of physical information generation units, and the check unit compares the physical information converted by the physical information generation units so that the conversion performed by the physical information generation unit is correct. Verify whether it was converted,
The comparison result may be output as the verification result. The plurality of physical information generation units may convert the logical transfer information into the physical transfer information by different algorithms, or by the same algorithm.

Further, a physical transfer information selection unit for selecting one physical transfer information from the physical transfer information from the plurality of physical information generation units and outputting the selected physical transfer information to the storage device is provided. From the comparison result, the check unit selects the physical information generation unit that outputs the physical transfer information as the physical transfer information that has been correctly converted from the more matched physical transfer information. The physical transfer information selection unit can be instructed.

An information processing device that processes information, one or more storage devices that store information from the information processing device, and an information conversion processing device that controls transfer between the information processing device and the storage device. The information processing system may include the information conversion processing device described above.

Further, in a disk array system having a plurality of disk devices arranged in an array and a system control unit for controlling transfer of information, which is used by being connected to a host computer, the disk devices from the host computer are transferred to the disk devices. A physical information generation unit for converting logical address information into physical address information, a logical information generation unit for converting physical address information from a plurality of disk devices to a host computer into logical address information, and the physical information generation unit. A check unit for verifying whether the conversion is correctly converted and outputting a verification result, and the logical information generation unit reversely converts the physical address information output from the physical information generation unit into logical address information. However, the check unit is a logical address for the disk device from the host computer. By comparing the information with the logical address information from the logical information generation unit, it is verified whether the conversion performed in the physical information generation unit has been correctly converted, and the comparison result is output as a verification result. be able to.

As an information transfer control method in the information conversion processing device, logical transfer information from the information processing device to the storage device is converted into physical transfer information and output to the storage device. The physical transfer information is inversely converted into logical transfer information, and the logical transfer information from the information processing device to the storage device is compared with the inversely converted logical transfer information. Can perform transfer control so as to notify the information processing apparatus that a malfunction has occurred.

[0028]

The physical information generator converts logical transfer information from the information processing device to the storage device into physical transfer information and outputs the physical transfer information. Also, the logical information generation unit converts the physical transfer information output from the physical information generation unit into logical transfer information.

The check unit compares the logical transfer information from the information processing device with respect to the storage device with the logical transfer information from the logical information generation unit, and the physical information generation unit It verifies whether or not the conversion performed is correctly converted, and outputs a match result that is a comparison result as a verification result.

In the case where the physical information generating unit has a plurality of units, the checking unit compares the physical information converted by the physical information generating unit to convert the physical information generating unit. Is converted correctly, and the comparison result is output as the verification result. Further, when the physical transfer information selection unit has a physical transfer information selection unit, the check unit determines that the physical transfer information that is more consistent from the comparison result is the correctly converted physical transfer information. The physical transfer information selection unit is instructed to select the physical information generation unit that outputs information. When instructed, the physical transfer information selection unit selects one piece of physical transfer information from the physical transfer information from the plurality of physical information generation units and outputs it to the storage device.

The information transfer operation from the information processing device to the storage device is specifically as follows.

The logical transfer information from the information processing device to the storage device (hereinafter referred to as upper I / O request information) is the contents of the request information in the command interpreting & executing section further included in the information conversion processing device. A certain read request / write request or the like is interpreted and information transfer control is performed.

The upper I / O request information is obtained by the physical information generating unit based on a mapping table including conversion control parameter information such as the number of storage devices and unit storage size.
At the same time as detecting the transfer destination storage device, physical transfer information (hereinafter referred to as lower I / O request information) for the storage device is generated.

With the above operation, the present system, in which one piece of higher-order I / O request information is input from the information processing apparatus, simultaneously operates lower-order I / O to a plurality of disk devices which are storage devices.
Requests can be generated and issued.

Further, the present invention operates as follows in order to prevent malfunction in conversion.

In the logical information generation unit, based on the lower I / O request information corresponding to the storage device generated by the physical information generation unit and the reverse conversion control parameter information similar to the conversion control parameter information, The reproduction upper I / O request information input from the information processing device is regenerated.

Further, in the check unit, the regenerated reproduction upper I / O request information and the upper I / O request information input from the host are compared so that the physical information generating unit and the logical information generating unit It becomes possible to detect a malfunction.

The comparison result in the check unit is reported to the upper control unit in the information conversion processing device as information transfer control information, so that the information transfer at the time of malfunction detection in the physical information generation unit and the logical information generation unit can be higher. It becomes possible to control by the control unit.

In the information conversion processing device, by using the lower I / O request information generated by the plurality of physical information generation units realized by different algorithms as the input information of the check unit, the malfunction of the physical information address generation unit can be prevented. It is possible to detect and control the information transfer when the malfunction is detected. Further, in the information conversion processing device, malfunction of the physical information generation unit is detected by using the lower I / O request information generated by the plurality of physical information generation units realized by the same algorithm as the input information of the check unit. In addition, it is possible to control the information transfer when the malfunction is detected.

The lower I / O request information generated by the plurality of physical information generators is used as the input information of the check unit, and the check unit detects a malfunction of the physical information generator, and at the same time, the optimum lower I / O is detected. Generate selection information for selecting / O request information. Further, in the physical information generation unit, by selecting the optimum lower I / O request information based on the selection information, it becomes possible to control the information transfer without pausing.

The inverse conversion control parameter information is
By using the conversion control parameter information in common, the information conversion processing unit can be downsized.

[0042]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 2 shows an outline of the disk array subsystem. The disk array subsystem is a system in which a plurality of disk devices are arranged in an array. It is also a device that can be accessed as a large-capacity one or a plurality of disk devices from the host device.

In FIG. 2, reference numeral 1 is a host device such as a host computer (information processing device). A system control unit 2 controls the entire disk array subsystem. Further, the system control unit 2 as an information conversion processing device can control the information transfer between the host computer and the storage device. Reference numeral 3 is a disk device such as a magnetic disk or an optical disk which is a storage device of a lower device. The system control unit 2 includes a host I / F control unit 10 that controls information transfer between a higher-level device and the system, an array control unit 20 that controls information transfer and information conversion processing within the system, and a lower-level device. And a disk I / F control unit 30 for controlling information transfer between a plurality of disk devices and the system.

Further, the array control section 20 includes a buffer section 22 for temporarily storing transfer information, and both the I / F control sections 1.
0 and 30 and the DMAC section 21 for controlling the information transfer between the buffer 22, a redundant data generating section 23 for generating redundant data for recovering the failed disk data corresponding to the failure of the disk device, and a main control section 24 and.

A detailed block diagram of the main controller 24 is shown in FIG. FIG. 1 shows a conversion process of transfer information in the main controller 24 of the array controller 20 which constitutes the system controller 2. In FIG. 1, 25 is
The command interpreter / executor interprets commands such as higher-order I / O request information, which is logical transfer information, and executes information transfer control. Reference numeral 26-1 denotes a physical information generation unit, which is instructed by the command interpretation & execution unit 25 to transfer logical transfer information of the upper device to lower I / O request information of physical transfer information corresponding to the lower device. Generate transfer information.
The physical information generation unit 26-1 is preset with conversion control parameter information including configuration information of a plurality of lower-level disk devices 3 and access control information for managing access to the disk devices. A check unit 27 compares the upper I / O request information with the regenerated reproduction upper I / O request. A logical information generation unit 28 generates logical transfer information corresponding to the upper device from the physical transfer information of the lower device.

In this embodiment, the host I / F transferred from the host, which is the host device, via the host I / F control circuit unit 10
The O request information is converted into lower I / O request information corresponding to the disk device which is a lower device. In addition, disk I /
In the disk array subsystem for transfer to the disk device via the F control unit 30, a logical information generation unit 28 for regenerating upper I / O request information from the lower I / O request information, and the upper I / O request A check unit 27 for comparing the information with the regenerated reproduction upper I / O request,
This is a method of verifying the conversion processing operation of I / O request information, which is transfer information, and controlling information transfer based on the verification result.

First, the conversion process will be described with reference to FIG.

When the I / O request information from the host 1 is a read request (Read), the higher I / O request information is the read request and the logical address information in which the target data is stored. , And transfer data length information of the target data. The command interpreting & executing section 25 receives the I / O request information from the host 1 (S121) and interprets the access request area (address information) and the size (transfer data length) from the content of the read request (S122). , Execute information transfer control according to the request content. Further, the command interpreting & executing section 25 transfers the logical address information and the transfer data length to the physical information generating section 26-1. The physical information generation unit 26-1 uses the logical address information based on the conversion control parameter information including the configuration information of the plurality of disk devices 3 which are lower devices and the access control information for managing access to the disk devices. Then, the target disk device of the access request area is selected (mapped) from the transfer data length information (S123). Also,
The physical information generation unit 26-1 generates lower I / O request information including information such as an address and transfer length of physical information for each selected disk device (S124). Here, the lower I / O request information may be low-level information such as a cylinder address or a track address, or may be logical address information and transfer data length information similar to the upper I / O request information. .

The mapping of the disk device is performed using the conversion control parameter information (mapping table) shown in FIG. FIG. 13 shows RAID. Level. 4 shows an example of data arrangement of each disk device in No. 4 (method for realizing high transaction processing by dividing transfer data between host computers into arbitrary size called stripe size and integrating data). In FIG. 13, the shaded area indicates the stripe size of the access management size. Disk device No. Areas 0 to 4 are divided and managed in stripe areas. Further, the numbers 0 to n are consecutive numbers added for mapping to the access area recognized by the host computer for each of the divided stripe sizes, and are hereinafter referred to as stripe numbers. In this example, the disk device No. 4 is a disk device for storing parity data, and no number is added to the stripe. here,
The case where the stripe numbers 26 and 27 are accessed by the I / O request information from the host computer will be described as an example. The physical information generation unit 26-1 has a mapping table as shown in FIG. 13, and from the stripe numbers 26 and 27, the disk device No. Detect 2 and 3. Furthermore, the group N is used as address information.
o. 6 and the physical information of the transfer data length are detected. In this way, the logical information can be converted into physical information by dividing the entire area formed by a plurality of disk devices into stripes and reading the numbered mapping table.

Also, when the upper I / O request information is a write request (Write), the physical information generation unit 26-1
Conversion processing of transfer information is performed by the same processing.

By the above processing, the conversion processing of the transfer information from the upper apparatus to the lower apparatus and the information transfer control are realized, and the DMAC section 21 transfers the information between the I / F control sections 10 and 30 and the buffer 22. Control and buffer unit 22
The data is temporarily stored in the device and the data of the upper device and the lower device is transferred.

Next, a verification process of malfunction or normal operation will be described. In the present invention, the logical information generation unit 28 reproduces the reproduction upper I / O request information from the lower I / O request information and the reverse conversion control parameter information similar to the conversion control parameter information used in the transfer information conversion. To achieve.

Further, the checking unit 27 compares (compares) the reproduction upper I / O request information with the upper I / O request information. If the comparison results do not match, the main control unit is notified that the physical information generation unit 26-1 or the logical information generation unit 28 has malfunctioned (error occurred). If the comparison results match, monitoring is continued as normal. This makes it possible to detect a malfunction. Further, by the main control unit reporting the comparison result to the host computer, information transfer control can be performed while checking the operations of the physical information generation unit and the logical information generation unit, and a more reliable information conversion process. And information transfer control can be realized.

For example, the upper I / O request information from the upper device includes LUN (Logical Unit Number), LBA (Log
Since information such as ical block address), length (data length), and the like are included, the check unit 27 holds these higher-order I / O request information. In the logical information generating unit 28, the lower I / O request information corresponding to the upper I / O request information for the lower disk device is the physical information generating unit 26.
When it is outputted from -1, the reproduction upper I / O request information is regenerated by inversely converting the lower I / O request information and transferred to the check unit 27. In the check unit 27,
LUN, LBA, and len of the reproduction upper I / O request information
gth and the LUN of the high-order I / O request information that was held previously,
LBA and length are compared respectively. If they do not match from the comparison result, it is determined that an error has occurred, and the upper control unit in the main control unit is notified.

This makes it possible to detect an erroneous conversion operation in the physical information generating section and the logical information generating section.

Next, the second embodiment will be described.

FIG. 6 shows an embodiment in which the logical information generator 28 in the first embodiment generates logical transfer information corresponding to the host from the physical transfer information of the disk device. 2 is a block diagram of FIG.

In the system for realizing the information transfer between the upper device and the lower device, the transfer information from the lower device is
Information is transferred from the lower device to the upper device by being converted into transfer information corresponding to the upper device by the logical information generation unit 28. In the present embodiment, the logical information generation unit 28 can generate logical information from the output information of the physical information generation unit, and further, the logical information generation unit 26-1 outputs the logical information as in the first embodiment. This is a reverse conversion of the lower I / O request information, which is the easiest embodiment of the present invention.

Information transfer from the lower device to the upper device includes, for example, message information. The message information includes an error notification in the disk device and a disk I.
There are notifications such as D and block ID. In the present embodiment, when there is information transfer from the lower device to the upper device, the logical information generation unit 28 also converts these message information into logical information.

Next, the third embodiment will be described.

FIG. 7 shows an embodiment of the present invention, and shows a system having a physical information generating section realized by a plurality of different algorithms.

In FIG. 7, reference numerals 26-1 to 26-n are physical information generating units, which convert transfer information from the host into transfer information corresponding to the disk device. Each of the physical information generation units uses different physical information generation algorithms.

As the physical information generation algorithm, for example, as shown in the first embodiment, in addition to the algorithm for generating the physical information using the mapping table, stripe numbers are regularly assigned and the physical information is calculated by calculation. There are algorithms that generate information. In this case, consecutive numbers are added to each group (stripe numbers 0, 1, 2 and 3 in the example shown in FIG. 13) sharing the data area, and the stripe number is divided by the number of disks sharing the data area. Calculate the remainder as the disk number. For example, in FIG.
In the example shown in (1), the stripe number 26 is divided by 4 and the remainder 2 is the disk number, and the stripe number 27 is 4
The remainder, 3 divided by, is the disk number. Further, it can be obtained from the quotient obtained by dividing the group number 6 by 4. Also, physical information (address information and transfer data length) is calculated.

As described above, different generation algorithms are set in advance in the physical information generation section.

Next, the conversion processing and the malfunction verification processing will be described. The transfer information from the host is converted into transfer information corresponding to the disk device by the physical information generation unit 26-1. At the same time, the other physical information generation units 26-2 to 26-n
Performs conversion processing by each generation algorithm. The check unit 27 verifies the processing operation of the physical information generation units 26-1 to 26-n by comparing the output information of each of the physical information generation units 26-1 to 26-n. If the processing operations of all the physical information generation units 26-1 to 26-n are normal, the output information will match. In this case, as the lower I / O request information to the disk device, the output information of one of the physical information generation units may be transferred. In FIG. 7, the output information from the physical information generation unit 26-1 is transferred to the disk device. In addition, as a result of the comparison of the check unit 27, the output information of the physical information generation unit that matches more is regarded as normal
Other than that, the upper control unit is notified that the output information of the different physical information generation unit has an error. Also, if there is a physical information generation unit in which an error occurs, if the physical information generation unit is a physical information generation unit that is transferring output information to the disk device, then switch to another normal physical information generation unit. You may The configuration for switching will be described in the fifth embodiment. Although not shown in the figure, the logical information generation unit 28 has a logical information generation unit, and when information is transferred from the lower device to the upper device, the logical information generation unit 28
It is also possible to convert these message information into logical information.

Next, a fourth embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention when the plurality of physical information generating units 26-1 to 26-n in FIG. 7 are realized by the physical information generating unit 26-1 having the same algorithm. Is shown.

In this embodiment, a plurality of physical information generation units are provided, and the same physical information generation algorithm is set for each. The check unit 27 can verify the processing operation of the physical information generation unit 26-1 by comparing the output information of the plurality of physical information generation units 26-1. In this case, as the lower I / O request information to the disk device, the output information of one of the physical information generation units may be transferred. In FIG. 8, the output information from the physical information generation unit 26-1 located on the left side of the drawing is transferred to the disk device. In addition, as a result of the comparison of the check unit 27,
The higher-level control unit is notified that the output information of the physical information generation unit that matches more is regarded as normal, and the output information of the other different physical information generation units is error. Also, if there is a physical information generation unit in which an error has occurred, if the physical information generation unit is a physical information generation unit that transfers output information to the disk device, output information of another normal physical information generation unit You may switch to. The configuration for switching will be described in the fifth embodiment. In this case, in the case of an algorithm that uses a mapping table required for conversion, one mapping table may be commonly used.

Next, a fifth embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 9 shows an embodiment of the present invention.

In the present embodiment, the above-mentioned third and fourth
In the case of having a plurality of physical information generation units shown in this embodiment, a method will be described in which the check unit 27 that has input the output information generates and switches the selection information that selects the optimum transfer information from the comparison result. .

As a result of the comparison by the check unit 27, the output information of the physical information generating unit that is more matched is made normal, and the other output information of the different physical information generating unit is notified to the upper control unit that an error has occurred. Also, if there is a physical information generation unit in which an error has occurred, if the physical information generation unit is a physical information generation unit that transfers output information to the disk device, output information of another normal physical information generation unit The check unit 27 instructs the physical address selection unit 32 to switch to. In the physical information selection unit 32, the physical information generated by the plurality of physical information generation units and the check unit 2
One piece of physical information is selected from the selection information generated in 7 and transferred as transfer information for the disk device.

Alternatively, in the check unit 27, the conversion process in the physical information generation unit is performed, the output information is taken as a correct conversion result, and the result is compared with the output information of each physical information generation unit. It is also possible to verify each match and mismatch and detect an error.

According to the present invention, a plurality of physical information generation units 2
If two or more of 6-1 to n normally operate, it is possible to control without stopping information transfer by selecting correct physical information even if the other malfunctions.

If at least one normally operates, it is possible to prevent malfunction of information transfer to the disk device.

In the present embodiment, the check unit 27 and the physical address selection unit 32 are the same whether the plurality of physical information generation units are all realized by different algorithms or when the plurality of physical information generation units are realized by the same algorithm. Can be processed.

Next, a sixth embodiment will be described.

FIG. 10 shows a block diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment showing the information conversion processing method and the information transfer control method according to the present invention, the physical information generation unit and the logical information generation unit perform processing independently, and conversion control parameter information and inverse conversion control are performed. Parameter information is used in each process.

In this embodiment, the conversion control parameter information and the inverse conversion parameter information are shared to realize the miniaturization of each processing unit. For example, when the physical information and the logical information are converted by using the mapping table as shown in FIG. 13, the conversion from the physical information to the logical information and the reverse conversion from the logical information to the physical information are performed. Since the same mapping table can be used, this mapping table can be shared.

Next, the seventh embodiment will be described.

FIG. 11 shows an embodiment of the present invention in an information processing system in which conversion information is output information after predetermined conversion processing is executed on input information.

The system which outputs the converted information after performing the expected conversion processing on the input information input to the information conversion section has an inverse conversion section for regenerating the input information from the output information of the information conversion section, The check unit compares the inverse conversion information, which is the output information of the inverse conversion unit, with the input information. From the comparison result, it is possible to check the malfunction of the information conversion unit and the inverse conversion unit and control the information transfer, and the highly reliable information conversion process is realized.

According to the present invention, in the conversion process of the transfer information transferred between the above-mentioned device and the lower device, the reliability of the conversion process can be improved by enabling the verification of the conversion process. This means an improvement in the reliability of conversion processing of I / O request information, which is transfer information, which has become particularly important in a disk subsystem whose capacity is remarkably increased, that is, a highly reliable large capacity. A file system can be realized.

Further, by sharing the conversion / inverse conversion control parameter information in the transfer information conversion process and the inverse conversion process, the process can be downsized (about 1/2).

Further, according to the present invention, each conversion processing operation can be verified by comparing a plurality of conversion processing results, and at the same time, an optimum conversion processing result can be selected from a plurality of conversion processing results. Is. This makes it possible to execute the information transfer without stopping even if a malfunction is detected at the time of executing the transfer information conversion process, and it is possible to construct a highly reliable non-stop file system.

[0086]

According to the present invention, in the conversion process of transfer information transferred between the above device and the lower device, it is possible to verify whether or not the conversion process is correctly converted. This makes it possible to construct a highly reliable non-stop file system.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing transfer information conversion processing, which is an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a disk array subsystem.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a system having a plurality of magnetic disk devices as a lower device.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a system having a plurality of magnetic disk devices as a lower device.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a transfer information conversion method in the related art.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention implemented by a plurality of different algorithms.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention implemented by the same plurality of algorithms.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention for selecting an optimum conversion result from a plurality of algorithms.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention that shares conversion control parameter information when executing conversion processing.

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a physical division generation processing flow in the main control unit.

FIG. 13 is a data arrangement example (mapping table) of each disk device.

[Explanation of symbols]

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Host computer, 2 ... System control part, 3 ... Magnetic disk device, 5 ... Micro program control part, 6 ...
Storage unit control unit, 7 ... Storage unit, 8 ... Control block, 10 ... Host interface unit, 20 ... Array control unit, 21 ... DMAC unit, 22 ... Buffer unit, 23 ... Redundant data generation unit, 24 ... Main control unit, 25 ... Command interpretation & control section, 26-1 to n ... Physical information generation section, 27 ... Check section, 28 ... Logical information generation section, 31 ... Disk interface section.

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Minor Yoshida Minoru Yoshida 2880, Kozu, Odawara, Kanagawa Stock company Hitachi Ltd. Odawara factory (72) Shoichi Miyazawa 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa Stock company Hitachi, Ltd. Microelectronics Device Development Laboratory (72) Inventor Taka Oeda 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture Hitachi Ltd. Microelectronics Device Development Laboratory

Claims (11)

[Claims] 1. An information conversion processing device which is provided between an information processing device and one or more storage devices, and which controls transfer between the information processing device and the storage device, wherein the storage device from the information processing device. A physical information generation unit that converts logical transfer information to physical transfer information and outputs the physical transfer information, and verifies whether the conversion performed by the physical information generation unit is correctly converted and outputs a verification result. An information conversion processing device comprising: a check unit. 2. The logical information generation unit according to claim 1, further comprising a logical information generation unit that converts physical transfer information output from the physical information generation unit into logical transfer information, wherein the check unit includes the information processing. Whether the conversion performed by the physical information generation unit is correctly converted by comparing the logical transfer information from the device to the storage device with the logical transfer information from the logical information generation unit. Is verified, and the result of comparison is output as a verification result. 3. The logical information generation unit according to claim 2, wherein the physical transfer information from the storage device is converted into logical transfer information and output to the information processing device. Information conversion processing device. 4. The physical information generating unit and the logical information generating unit according to claim 3, respectively converting a correspondence between physical transfer information and logical transfer information based on a predetermined mapping table. An information conversion processing device characterized by the above. 5. The physical information generating unit according to claim 1, wherein the check unit has a plurality of physical information generating units by comparing the physical information converted by the physical information generating units. An information conversion processing device characterized by verifying whether or not the received conversion has been correctly converted, and outputting the comparison result as a verification result. 6. The information conversion processing device according to claim 5, wherein the plurality of physical information generation units convert logical transfer information into physical transfer information by different algorithms. . 7. The information conversion processing device according to claim 5, wherein the plurality of physical information generation units convert logical transfer information into physical transfer information by the same algorithm. . 8. The physical transfer information selection according to claim 5, wherein one physical transfer information is selected from the physical transfer information from the plurality of physical information generation units and is output to the storage device. The check unit further includes a unit, and the check unit outputs the physical transfer information from the comparison result as physical transfer information in which the more matched physical transfer information is correctly converted. An information conversion processing device characterized by instructing the physical transfer information selection unit to select a unit. 9. An information processing device for processing information, one or more storage devices for storing information from the information processing device, and information conversion for controlling transfer between the information processing device and the storage device. In an information processing system having a processing device, the information conversion processing device converts a logical transfer information from the information processing device to the storage device into physical transfer information and outputs the physical information generation unit, A logical information generation unit that converts physical transfer information into logical transfer information, and a check unit that verifies whether the conversion performed by the physical information generation unit is correctly converted and outputs a verification result. An information processing system having. 10. A disk array system having a plurality of disk devices arranged in an array and a system control unit for controlling transfer of information, which is used by connecting to a host computer. A physical information generation unit for converting logical address information into physical address information, a logical information generation unit for converting physical address information from a plurality of disk devices to a host computer into logical address information, and the physical information generation unit. A check unit that verifies whether the conversion is correctly converted and outputs a verification result, and the logical information generation unit reversely converts the physical address information output from the physical information generation unit into logical address information. The check unit is a logical address for the disk device from the host computer. By comparing the information with the logical address information from the logical information generation unit, it is verified whether the conversion performed by the physical information generation unit is correctly converted, and the comparison result is output as a verification result. A disk array system characterized in that 11. An information transfer control method in an information conversion processing device for controlling transfer between an information processing device that processes information and one or more storage devices that store information from the information processing device, The logical transfer information from the information processing device to the storage device is converted into physical transfer information and output to the storage device, and the physical transfer information is inversely converted into logical transfer information. The logical transfer information from the information processing device to the storage device is compared with the inversely converted logical transfer information, and if they do not match, the information processing device is notified that a malfunction has occurred. Characterized information transfer control method.