Patent ID: 7577675

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of determining a mapping of an object to storage layers, the method comprising: providing an identifier of a component of a first storage layer of a physical data storage system, through a particular routine interface, to a first get-mapping routine that is associated with said first storage layer and that is executed by a processor; receiving, from said first get-mapping routine, one or more first mappings between said component of said first storage layer and one or more components of a second storage layer; providing one or more identifiers of said one or more components of said second storage layer, through said particular routine interface, to a second get-mapping routine that is associated with said second storage layer; and receiving, from said second get-mapping routine, one or more second mappings between said one or more components of said second storage layer and one or more components of a third storage layer; wherein the first get-mapping routine and the second get-mapping routine have different implementations for the same routine interface; generating one or more database views based on said one or more first mappings and said one or more second mappings; wherein at least one database view of said one or more database views comprises information from said first storage layer, said second storage layer, and said third storage layer; storing, on a volatile or non-volatile computer-readable storage medium, performance statistics on operations performed on data in a database; simulating said operations relative to a modified storage hierarchy that has been modified from an original storage hierarchy on which said operations were originally performed; generating new performance statistics based on operations simulated relative to the modified storage hierarchy; and determining database performance information based at least in part on said one or more database views and said new performance statistics; and presenting said database performance information via a display device.