Patent ID: 8862837

Claim:
A method for performing processing for automated compression of data comprising: receiving a plurality of idle counters for a plurality of data portions, wherein each of the plurality of idle counters is associated with a different one of the plurality of data portions and indicates a level of inactivity with respect to idle criteria for said different one of the plurality of data portions, said idle criteria specifying one or more conditions for determining whether a data portion is idle; receiving compression criteria specifying conditions for determining whether a data portion is a candidate for data compression, said compression criteria including a time compression threshold indicating a minimum amount of time that a data portion has been deemed idle with respect to said idle criteria whereby each of the plurality of data portions that qualifies as a candidate for data compression has an associated one of the plurality of idle counters which indicates an inactivity level that is greater than said time compression threshold; performing first processing to determine whether a first of the plurality of data portions is a candidate for data compression in accordance with said compression criteria; and performing compression processing for said first data portion if said first processing determines that said first data portion is a candidate for data compression in accordance with said compression criteria, said compression processing including: selecting at least some of said first data portion for compression; compressing at least some of said first data portion and generating a first compressed data portion; and storing said first compressed data portion on a physical storage device, and wherein a first attribute is associated with a source entity that is any of a logical device, a portion of a logical device, and a storage group including a plurality of logical devices, said first attribute having a value indicating whether compression is enabled or disabled for the source entity, wherein if said first attribute has a value indicating that compression is enabled for the source entity, then any data portion included in said source entity is compressible.