Patent ID: 8631105

Claim:
A method to optimize revenue realized under multiple service level agreements, comprising the steps of: providing an information storage and retrieval system, comprising one or more data storage devices; entering into (N) service level agreements with one storage services customer by a storage services provider to provide data storage services for (N) applications using said information storage and retrieval system, wherein each of said (N) service level agreements specifies a maximum response time RT SLA comprising an elapsed time from receipt by the storage services provider from a storage services customer of a request to write data to a data storage device or read data from a data storage device and completion of that request, and wherein a (j) th SLA recites a RT (j)SLA , wherein (j) is greater than or equal to 1 and less than or equal to (N), and wherein (N) is greater than 1; calculating for each value of (j), a monetary value per unit throughput ν j for the (j) th application; calculating (N) optimum data flow rates to maximize the revenues to the storage services provider; determining for each value of (j) an optimum data flow rate x (j)OPT ; initializing, for each value of (j), a maximum data flow rate X (j)MAX that the (j) th application can utilize; determining, for each value of (j), if x (j)OPT equals X (j)MAX ; for each value of (j) wherein x (j)OPT does not equal X (j)MAX , delaying execution of I/O requests from the (j) th application, such that the average response time for the (j) th application equals RT (j)SLA .