Patent ID: 9736240
Date: 2017-08-15
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method for in-band management of a network attached storage environment comprising: connecting a client via a standard network attached storage protocol to a network attached storage system using existing authorization and authentication procedures; exposing advanced management functions to the client in-band via a special file system structure residing on the network attached storage system, over the standard network attached storage protocol, wherein the client uses existing standard network attached storage protocol functions on the special file system structure to retrieve and to invoke the advanced management functions, wherein each special file of the special file system structure comprises: wherein the special file system structure uses a certain file system extension and contains files and directors; wherein files are presented with their original file name and directories are represented with their original directory name including a special file; wherein the special file system structure represents one entity for files and directories; wherein the certain file system extension is added to a file system root only; and returning result data to the client using a feedback channel and the standard network attached storage protocol.