Patent ID: 6918006

Claim:
In a data storage system managed by a set of data management operations, a method to coordinate the set of data management operations wherein data management operations are performed on a set of data storage volumes distributed across a plurality of disk drives, the method comprising: concurrently executing, by a task director, a first data management operation and a second data management operation, the first data management operation having a first set of tasks and the second data management operation having a second set of tasks; and, controlling, by the task director, the execution or the non-execution of each task of the first and second sets of tasks based on a set of predetermined rules comprising: determining, by the task director, if a first task of the first set of tasks and a second task of the second set of tasks compete for a common resource on the plurality of disk drives; if the first task and the second task compete for a common resource, identifying if the first task and the second task will produce a common set of results upon their respective executions; and, if the first and second tasks would produce the common set of results, executing a single task to produce the common set of results, such that the first task and the second task are not both executed.