Patent ID: 7516285

Claim:
A method of performing a fencing operation on exports of one or more storage systems in a clustered environment, comprising: initially configuring export lists in the one or more storage systems such that one or more cluster members of an associated cluster have either read write access or read only access to at least one given export of at least one of the one or more storage systems; receiving a message from one or more cluster members that one or more other cluster members are to be fenced off from the at least one given export; in response to receiving the message from the one or more cluster members that the one or more other cluster members are to be fenced off from the at least one given export, stopping further incoming file system operations; processing any pending file system operations; removing any locks of a fenced host; modifying, in response to receiving the message, one or more other cluster members from read-write access to read-only access by the one or more storage systems in at least one export list; and restarting the file system operations using the modified at least one export list.