Patent ID: 7213021

Claim:
A storage access method in a network data processing system comprising one or more host servers, a switching component, and a data storage component, the storage access method comprising: receiving a user-originated request for data storage, the request including a service policy, the service policy comprising a server sub-policy, a network sub-policy, and a storage sub-policy which is associated with one or more data storage performance criteria; identifying a server service component based on the server sub-policy; identifying a data store from among a pool of data stores defined in the data storage component, wherein the identifying of the data store from among the pool of data stores includes selecting a data store having performance characteristics that meet or exceed the one or more performance criteria associated with the storage sub-policy; identifying a port on the data store by applying a rule to the one or more data storage performance criteria, wherein the rule characterizes each port of a set of at least one port on the data store with a bandwidth metric, the bandwidth metric for each port being determined from a port priority and a total bandwidth of each port; communicating with a data storage agent to establish a data path within the data storage component for data communication between the port and the data store, the data storage agent being one of a plurality of data storage agents that manage portions of the data storage component; based on the network sub-policy, identifying a network path for data communication between the server service component and the port, wherein the network sub-policy includes one or more network path criteria for selecting a network path from a set of one or more network paths based upon one or more network attributes; and communicating with a network agent to allocate the network path identified based upon the network sub-policy, the network agent being one of a plurality of network agents that manage portions of the network storage component.