Patent ID: 7739459

Claim:
A method for performing a storage operation on data in a network, the method comprising: selecting at least one of a plurality of first modules to manage a storage operation, each of the plurality of modules have an index cache associated therewith, wherein each index cache associates a respective module with at least one of a the plurality of storage devices, wherein at least first and second modules of the plurality of modules are configured to communicate with a plurality of physical network storage devices such that at least two of the physical network storage devices are shared by the first and second modules, and wherein at least the first and second modules are configured to communicate with a plurality of client devices such that at least two of the client devices are shared by the first and second modules; and performing the storage operation on data of at least one of the plurality of client devices with the first module and at least one of the plurality of network storage devices; and storing information about the storage operation in a first index cache associated with the first module.