Patent ID: 7275103

Claim:
A storage area network (SAN), comprising: a host system comprising an application; a storage device comprising application data; a SAN fabric comprising a plurality of components for coupling the host system to the storage device; a system external to the SAN fabric configured to implement a storage path monitor, wherein the storage path monitor is configured to: monitor performance metrics of a plurality of paths through the SAN fabric from the host system to the storage device, wherein the application accesses the application data via one of the plurality of paths; generating historical performance data for each path of said plurality of paths based on the performance metrics over a period of time; determine current quality of service of each of the paths from the monitored performance metrics; determine another one of the plurality of paths predicted based on the historical performance data to provide a higher quality of service than the one of the plurality of paths; and change the paths so that the application accesses the application data via the other one of the plurality of paths predicted to perform above a quality of service threshold.