Patent ID: 7844756

Claim:
A method, comprising: maintaining a set of communication paths between a plurality of data movers and a plurality of storage devices; maintaining a prioritization order of the plurality of data movers based on processing power of the plurality of data movers, and assigning priorities to selected communication paths between selected data movers and selected storage devices; in response to maintaining the prioritization order and the assigned priorities, receiving a request to transfer data from a source storage device to a target storage device, wherein the source storage device and the target storage device are included in the plurality of storage devices; selecting at least one data mover from the plurality of data movers based on the set of communication paths, the maintained prioritization order, the assigned priorities, current workload order of the plurality of data movers, historical workload order of the plurality of data movers, and historical performance order of the plurality of data movers, wherein the selected at least one data mover can transfer the data from the source storage device to the target storage device; and transferring, by the selected at least one data mover, the data from the source storage device to the target storage device.