Patent ID: 8046537
Filing Date: 2011-10-25
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for managing storage of data in a network comprising a plurality of host data processors coupled to a virtualization engine, the virtualization engine being coupled to a plurality of physical storage media, each physical storage medium being assigned a tier level, the method comprising: storing a threshold storage access value associated with each tier level; presenting at least one virtual disk to a host data processor; receiving I/O requests to the virtual disk from the host data processor; storing metadata for blocks of the physical storage, the metadata identifying: periodically comparing the access value of a physical block to the threshold access value associated with its tier level, marking the block for migration to another tier level in dependence on the result of the comparison; and further comprising storing a break count value in the metadata for a physical block in dependence of the result of the comparison.