Patent ID: 7743214

Claim:
A storage system comprising: a plurality of storage partitions; a plurality of storage groups, the individual storage groups being associated with a selected one of a plurality of group types that are hierarchically organized; and access logic to access the plurality of storage partitions by employing a map of a logical volume that links the plurality of storage groups together, wherein the map includes a group data structure that represents a storage group of the plurality of storage groups, the storage group being a first child of a parent storage group, the group data structure having a function pointer configured to point to a command handler for a first group type with which the storage group is associated, a peer group pointer configured to point to a peer storage group of the storage group, the peer storage group being a second child of the parent storage group, and a child group pointer configured to point to a child storage group of the storage group, the child storage group being associated with a second group type, which is hierarchically organized below the first group type.