Patent ID: 7756986

Claim:
A data management method for managing access to a plurality of volumes of a storage system by at least two devices coupled to the storage system through a network, the method comprising steps of: providing, by the storage system to one of the at least two devices, a set of identifiers having a number of identifiers equal to a maximum number of permissible outstanding requests for the one of the at least two devices; receiving over the network at the storage system a request from the one of the at least two devices for access to at least one of the plurality of volumes of the storage system, the request identifying the at least one of the plurality of volumes in the storage system and a represented source of the request and including an encrypted one of the identifiers of the set, each identifier in the set used to authenticate a different request from the one of the at least two devices; and selectively servicing the request, at the storage system, based at least in part on steps of: determining, from configuration data, whether the represented source is authorized to access the at least one of the plurality of volumes; and verifying that the represented source of the request is the one of the at least two devices that issued the request, said verifying including determining whether the encrypted one of the identifiers is a next expected identifier of the set.