Patent ID: 7457824

Claim:
In a management control system, a method of assigning management responsibilities associated with resources in a storage area network to multiple agents, the multiple agents being in communication with management entities that in turn control the resources in the storage area network, the method comprising: generating an inquiry to learn of resources controlled by the management entities of the storage area network; in response to the inquiry, receiving resource identifiers and respective group identifiers for at least a portion of the multiple resources in the storage area network, the resource identifiers identifying respective resources of the storage area network, the group identifiers identifying corresponding groups of resources to which the identified resources belong, the groups of resources as identified by received common group identifiers being controlled by same respective management entities; and based on processing of the resource identifiers and respective group identifiers, assigning a particular agent in the storage area network to execute management responsibilities associated with a group of resources having a common associated group identifier, the particular agent being one of multiple different agents in communication with a corresponding management entity that controls the group of resources; wherein receiving the resource identifiers and the group identifiers includes: i) from a first agent of the multiple different agents, receiving a group identifier associated with a given resource group as well as multiple resource identifiers of resources in the given resource group, and ii) from a second agent of the multiple different agents, receiving the group identifier associated with the given resource group as well as the multiple resource identifiers of the resources in the given resource group, the group identifier received from the first agent being a same value as the group identifier received from the second agent, reception of the same value indicating that the given resource group is capable of being managed by the first agent or the second agent; selecting one of the first agent and the second agent to manage the resource group; and wherein assigning the particular agent includes notifying the selected agent to communicate through a respective management entity to control the resources in the given resource group.