Patent ID: 7539813

Claim:
A method of managing content storage in a computer system comprising at least one host and at least one content addressable storage (CAS) system that performs a plurality of operations on content units for the at least one host, wherein the at least one host identifies a content unit on the at least one CAS system using a content address generated based, at least in part, on the content of the content unit, wherein the at least one host comprises a plurality of application programs executing thereon, the plurality of application programs comprising at least first and second application programs, the method comprising acts of: (A) segregating the at least one CAS system into a plurality of virtual pools of CAS storage comprising at least first and second virtual pools; and (B) allocating each of the plurality of virtual pools to at least one of the plurality of application programs so that each one of the plurality of application programs is permitted to access only content units stored in the at least one CAS system that are included in one of the plurality of virtual pools allocated to the one of the application programs and is not permitted to access content units stored in the at least one CAS system that are not included in one of the plurality of virtual pools allocated to the one of the application programs; and wherein the first and second virtual pools are logically separated so that an access request directed to a specified one of the virtual pools results in a search of only content stored in the specified one of the virtual pools and not of content stored in any of the other virtual pools.