Patent ID: 7228544
Filing Date: 2007-06-05
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A job processing method for executing a plurality of jobs defined as a job net in a storage system, the storage system including a plurality of computers that are coupled to one or more disk apparatus via a storage area network, the job processing method comprising: providing a first regularized command for a plurality of real commands of first type, the real commands of first type including a first real command for performing a first function on a first device that is associated with a first company and a second real command for performing the first function on a second device that is associated with a second company, the first and second devices being of the same device type; providing a second regularized command for a plurality of real commands of second type, the real commands of second type including a third real command for performing a second function on the first device and a fourth real command for performing the second function on the second device; providing a plurality of interfaces including first and second interfaces, the first interface operable to handle the first function associated with the first regularized command, the second interface operable to handle the second function associated with the second regularized command; receiving a regularized command to perform a given function on a component within the storage system; invoking a suitable interface from the plurality of interfaces, the suitable interface being the first interface if the given function is the first function or the second interface if the given function is the second function; providing a plurality of functions of a plurality of storage management products. wherein the plurality of functions comprises a RAID managing function, a file system function, a database managing function, a backup function, and volume managing function; providing a plurality of switchers that refer to environmental variables to properly select a suitable adapter from a plurality of adapters and to select the suitable adapter associated with the invoked suitable interface, wherein the environmental variables are defined outside of the job processing method, and wherein the plurality of switchers are located inside of the job processing method; selecting the suitable adapter from a plurality of adapters associated with the invoked interface, the suitable adapter being selected according to the regularized command that has been received and by calling the plurality of adaptors located outside of the job processing method; and calling a suitable real command using the selected adapter, wherein the suitable real command corresponds to one of the storage management products, wherein some of the adapters are related to one switcher, and wherein each of the adapters is related to at least one of the storage management products, wherein the suitable real command being the first or third real command if the component on which the given function is to be performed is associated with the first company, or the second or fourth real command if the component on which the given function is to be performed is associated with the second company.