Attribute-managed storage
Richard A. Golding, Elizabeth Shriver, Tim J. Sullivan, John Wilkes · 1995
ation to configure a disk array well, and that initial installation can be a timeconsuming process. This is all made much worse if the system must adapt to changing workloads. The increased load on, and sophistication required of, administrators invariably means that the systems being constructed are not optimally configured---either they cost too much or they do not provide adequate service. To address these problems, we believe that storage systems must be self-managing: they must adapt themselves to the workload and resources they are given, without requiring human intervention. Our experience with the HP AutoRAID system [Wilkes95], which can dynamically select RAID layout policies based on usage, indicates that both performance and ease-ofuse can be improved by doing so. If a system is to be self-managing, it must be given a set of goals to manage towards. Our approach is to do this in two parts: our storage system is