Towards a middleware for configuring large-scale storage infrastructures

Abstract

The rapid proliferation of cloud and service-oriented computing infrastructure is creating an ever increasing thirst for storage within data centers. Ideally management applications in cloud deployments should operate in terms of high-level goals, and not present specific implementation details to administrators. Cloud providers often employ Storage Area Networks (SANs) to gain storage scalability. SAN configurations have a vast parameter space, which makes them one of the most difficult components to configure and manage in a cloud storage offering. As a step towards a general cloud storage configuration platform, this paper introduces a SAN configuration middleware that aids management applications in their task of updating and troubleshooting heterogeneous SAN deployments. The middleware acts as a proxy between management applications and a central repository of SAN configurations. The central repository is designed to validate SAN configurations against a knowledge base of best practice rules across cloud deployments. Management applications contribute local SAN configurations to the repository, and also subscribe to proactive notifications for configurations now no longer considered safe.