Patent ID: 7464156

Claim:
A method for balancing storage traffic in a storage area network (SAN), including at least a plurality of host computers, at least one storage gateway, and a plurality of storage entities, wherein the host computers are coupled to the storage gateway through a network and the storage entities are coupled to the storage gateway through a communication means, said method comprising: accumulating, over a time interval, statistical readings on the storage traffic for all routes in the SAN, wherein a route is established between each a host computer and a storage entity through the at least one gateway; determining a routing map using the statistical readings and a cost function, wherein the cost function is min (w variance *variance(GatewayTraffic)+w change *change), where the change value is a number of changes from a previous routing map, w variance is a weight assigned to the variance, the W change is a weight assigned to the change value, and the GatewayTraffic is the statistical readings on the storage traffic; said cost function is computed for all combinations of routes in the SAN; and using the routing map to assign new routes between the plurality of host computers and the plurality of storage entities through the at least one storage gateway; whereby the new routes allow to balance the storage traffic in the SAN.