Patent ID: 7346751

Claim:
A method for analyzing a storage operation cell, comprising: receiving characteristics data from a storage operation cell hierarchy, wherein the storage operation cell hierarchy comprises multiple hierarchically organized storage operation cells, each cell comprising a data agent component of a client computer configured to communicate with a first physical data storage resource, a media agent component configured to communicate with a second physical data storage resource, and a storage manager component configured to manage the data agent component and the media agent component, and wherein the data is descriptive of characteristics of at least one storage operation cell; receiving multiple weighting factors, wherein the weighting factors include at least one long-term weighting factor related to a long-term data protection service level and at least one short-term weighting factor related to a short-term data protection service level; calculating only a single storage metric based on the characteristics data and the weighting factors; and performing a data storage action related to at least one of the storage operation cells based on the calculated storage metric.