Patent ID: 7797395

Claim:
A data storage infrastructure for a communication network that produces a plurality of data flows of network data, the data storage infrastructure comprising: a plurality of data storage systems configured to store the network data using a plurality of data storage service classes, wherein different ones of the data storage systems provide different ones of the data storage service classes, and wherein one of the data storage service classes requires geographically diverse back-up storage; and a storage management system configured to process characteristics for the data flows to assign individual ones of the data flows to individual ones of the data storage systems, wherein the storage management system, to process the characteristics for the data flows to assign the individual ones of the data flows to the individual ones of the data storage systems, calculates a total score for each of the data flows based on a plurality of scored factors associated with each of the data flows, identifies key variables for each of the data flows, selects a service class from the data storage service classes for each of the data flows based on the total score and the key variables, and selects a storage system tier for each of the data flows based on the selected service class.