Patent ID: 7523139

Claim:
A system comprising: one or more physical storage devices; a computer system comprising at least one processor and a memory, wherein the memory stores a volume server which is executable by the at least one processor to manage configuration information for a volume, wherein the volume comprises data stored on the one or more physical storage devices, wherein the configuration information for the volume specifies a logical configuration of the data stored on the one or more physical storage devices; and a volume owner, wherein the volume owner is coupled to the one or more physical storage devices over a network; wherein the volume server is further executable by the at least one processor to lease the configuration information to the volume owner using a communications protocol, wherein leasing the configuration information creates a lease of the configuration information to the volume owner, wherein the lease comprises a specific duration of time for exclusive management of input/output (I/O) for the volume by the volume owner, wherein the communications protocol comprises a plurality of operations for management of the lease; and wherein the volume owner is configured to use the logical configuration specified in the configuration information to manage I/O for the volume, and wherein the volume owner is configured to use the logical configuration specified in the configuration information to send I/O requests over the network to the one or more physical storage devices.