Patent ID: 7043508

Claim:
A computer readable medium storing program instruction executable to implement a frozen image creation tool, the frozen image creation tool comprising: an interface configured to receive a request from an application for a list of frozen image creation methods associated with a first storage object; and analysis software configured to: populate a data structure comprising one or more nodes in response to the request, wherein each node of the one or more nodes includes attributes of a subcomponent of the first storage object related to a production of a frozen image of the subcomponent using at least one of a quiesce operation or a split operation, wherein, for at least one node of the one or more nodes, the attributes include both a quiesce attribute and split attribute, wherein each frozen image creation method includes a measure quiesce strength; enumerate one or more frozen image creation methods corresponding to each node of the one or more nodes, using the attributes corresponding to the node; and present an aggregation of the one or more frozen image creation methods to the application by establishing an ordered list of one or more frozen image creation methods associated with the first storage object based on one or more specified criteria and presenting the ordered list to the application.