Patent ID: 7644245

Claim:
A method performed by one or more computing systems, each computing system having a processor and memory, for calculating a storage metric in a network, wherein the network comprises a storage operation cell hierarchy that includes multiple storage operation cells organized in one or more hierarchical relationships, the method comprising: calculating, by the one or more computing systems, a single storage metric based on characteristics data and multiple weighting factors— wherein the characteristics data is associated with characteristics of one or more physical storage resources in the network, wherein the one or more physical storage resources are associated with one or more storage operation cells of the storage operation cell hierarchy, and wherein a storage operation cell includes— a data agent component for accessing data of one or more computing devices in the network; a media agent component for communicating with the one or more physical storage resources; and a storage manager component for managing the data agent component and the media agent component, and wherein the multiple weighting factors include— at least one long-term weighting factor related to a long-term data protection level, and at least one short-term weighting factor related to a short-term data protection level; and performing a data storage action related to the one or more physical storage resources based on the calculated single storage metric.