Patent ID: 7840730

Claim:
In a server cluster environment, a system comprising, a plurality of nodes, and a storage device coupled to the plurality of nodes, the storage device including a volume mounted on one of the nodes, the node on which the volume is mounted comprising an owning node of the storage device, and each other node comprising a non-owning node and including a redirector that provides shared access to the volume from that non-owning node, wherein the redirector routes file system metadata requests through a first communications path to the owning node, and routes at least some file system read and write data to the volume through a second communications path that comprises a high-speed communications path relative to the first communications path, wherein the redirector comprises a root instance that intercepts I/O requests, and a forwarding instance coupled to the root instance that forwards I/O data into a driver, wherein the redirector maintains a handle table for converting an application's virtual handle to an actual file system handle used by the volume, and changes the actual file system handle if the volume moves to a storage device of another node without changing the virtual handle, wherein the owning node includes a mechanism for maintaining ownership of the storage device comprising a persistent reservation mechanism that writes a key indicative of ownership to a registration table associated with the storage device, and each non-owning node writes a shared key to the registration table.