Patent ID: 6961838
Filing Date: 2005-11-01
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method for operating a distributed table-driven virtual storage system comprising a controller, a storage network, one or more hosts operatively connected to said network, one or more agents having volatile memory, and at least one storage container, said method comprising: the controller creating a mapping table relating a storage location in the at least one storage container to a storage location in a virtual disk representing the at least one storage container; the controller establishing state variables in said table to indicate conditions favoring or inhibiting certain virtual disk operations; the controller storing said mapping table in non-volatile memory; the controller distributing the mapping table to said one or more agents through the storage network; said one or more agents storing said distributed mapping table in volatile memory; each of said one or more agents accessing information stored in the storage container using its distributed mapping table as its index to locate the information; each of said one or more agents operating independently from all others using its distributed mapping table for I/O access to said at least one storage container.