Patent ID: 7236987

Claim:
A system for providing one or more virtual volumes, comprising: a host system; a set of storage devices, each of which includes physical block addresses that stores data; and a network switch system connecting the host system and the set of storage devices, and configured to define and manage a virtual volume associated with data distributed across the physical block addresses, the network switch system including: a first virtualization layer that maintains first tier objects including information reflecting a relationship between the physical block addresses and one or more logical partitions of virtual volume data, a second virtualization layer that maintains second tier objects including information reflecting a logical configuration of the virtual volume, a set of storage processors separated into first tier storage processors associated with the first virtualization layer and second tier storage processors associated with the second virtualization layer, wherein each storage processor includes a virtualization state manager (VSM) that is configured to manage a local version of the virtual volume, and a switching fabric interconnecting the first tier storage processors and the second tier storage processors; wherein the network switch system manages the virtual volume for the host system using the first and second tier objects.