Patent ID: 6915378

Claim:
A method for improving the performance of a processing system, the processing system including a plurality of host computers, at least one control unit (CU) coupled to the host computers, the CU including a cache and disk array coupled to the CU, the disk array including a plurality of volumes, the method comprising the steps of: (a) querying an operating system of at least one host computer to determine a storage medium that contains an object to be provided to the cached; (b) querying the operating system for a list of extents of the object in the disk array to be provided to the cached, and (c) providing a channel command sequence wherein the channel command sequence causes the object to be provided to the cache initially and then holds the object in the cache until an operator deactivates the object; and (d) sending the channel command sequence to the CU via an I/O operation at predetermined time intervals until the object is deactivated by operator command.