Patent ID: 8327004

Claim:
A storage area network (SAN), comprising one or more storage units, one or more host digital data processors coupled to the one or more storage units via an interconnect, one or more agents, each executing on an associated host digital data processor and each in communication with a manager digital data processor, the one or more agents each identifying attributes of any of (i) the host digital data processor with which that agent is associated, (ii) the interconnect to which that host digital data processor is coupled, and (iii) the storage units to which that host digital data processor is coupled, and communicating those attributes to the host digital data processor, wherein the one or more agents receive an assignment provided by the manager digital data processor for the associated host digital processor indicating at least one of the storage unites, and wherein at least one of the agent includes a filter driver to prevent the host digital data processor from accessing the storage units in the SAN not assigned to the host digital processor according to the assignment by performing: generating, by the filter driver, a list of the storage units for the host digital data processor from the assignment received from the manager digital data processor; querying, by a port driver, a bus to identify storage units in communication with the host to produce a port driver structure indicating the identified storage units; issuing, by a storage driver, a claim request for each of the located storage units in the port driver structure, wherein the claim request is to mount the storage unit; intercepting, by the filter driver, the storage driver claim requests; allowing, by the filter driver, the claim requests for storage units assigned to the host digital data processor, to continue to provide access to the assigned storage units; and returning, by the filter driver, a failure to the claim requests for storage units that are not assigned to the host to prevent the mounting of the storage unit in response to determining that the list does not indicate the requested host digital data processor is permitted to access the storage unit.