Patent ID: 7269604

Claim:
A method for transparently managing containers in a network of distributed physical resources, a container comprising a plurality of data objects and an association of the plurality of data objects with a plurality of physical resources in the network assigned to the container at which the container may be stored or copied, comprising: issuing a request to write one or more data objects in or to a container in response to a user command; accessing a meta-data catalog in response to the request, the meta-data catalog associating the data objects in the container with the plurality of physical resources assigned to the container, including querying meta-data about the container; locating on or staging to a selected physical resource a copy of the container, including copying a container from one physical resource to another assigned to the container transparently to the user should a staging condition arise; writing the data object to the copy of the container; synchronizing the copy with any other copies that may be present in the system, or making the changed copy for synchronization, transparently to the user should an out-of-synchronization condition arise; and updating the meta-data catalog to reflect changes incidental to the request, including updating the meta-data for the container to reflect the write operation.