Patent ID: 7657613

Claim:
A system, comprising: a storage consumer; a plurality of storage devices; one or more SAN fabrics each comprising one or more fabric devices configured to couple the storage consumer to the plurality of storage devices; and a storage consumer-centric storage provisioner, wherein to provide the storage consumer with storage comprised in the plurality of storage devices, the storage consumer-centric storage provisioner is configured to: acquire system data comprising topologic information and characteristics of the storage consumer, the plurality of storage devices and the SAN fabric devices; contextualize the system data into a perspective of the storage consumer to produce candidate system configuration parameters, wherein to contextualize the system data, the consumer-centric storage provisioner is configured to disregard data associated with system components not available to the storage consumer; present the candidate system configuration parameters to a user; receive user selection of a set of the candidate system configuration parameters; and configure the system based upon the user selection.