Patent ID: 8499086

Claim:
A system for managing a set of connections between a plurality of clients and a plurality of storage servers based on system load, comprising: a plurality of storage servers having a set of resources partitioned thereon, each of the storage servers in the plurality further comprising: at least one connection of the set of connections being a client communication connection from the storage server to at least one client, the at least one connection further requesting a given resource of the set of resources; a storage device for providing at least one volume of storage partitioned across the plurality of storage servers, such that a first portion of the given resource is located on a storage device associated with a first storage server of the plurality of storage servers, and such that a second portion of the given resource is located on a storage device associated with a second storage server of the plurality of storage servers; a load monitor process connected to communicate with other load monitor processes on at least one other storage server of the plurality of storage servers for generating a measure of overall system load, and for generating a measure of client load on each of the plurality of storage servers that have at least one portion of the given resource; and a client connection distribution process, responsive to the load monitor process, for repartitioning the set of connections and redistributing client load by disconnecting the at least one client communication connection from the first storage server and establishing a new connection from the at least one client communication connection to the second storage server based on a measurement of overall system efficiency determined from at least one of the measurement of overall system load, a category of the given resource requested, historical data available to the load monitor process in the plurality of storage servers relating to a previous access pattern from at least one storage server, policy parameters established for the plurality of servers, and the client load on each of the plurality of storage servers.