Patent ID: 8082330

Claim:
A method for configuring one or more physical devices of a data storage system for use in connection with provisioning storage for an application, the method comprising: receiving a policy including one or more sets of data storage system best practices, each of said one or more sets specifying data storage system best practices for a different type of data storage system including a first type associated with said data storage system; performing configuration processing in connection with initialization of said data storage system to configure a first portion of said one or more physical devices for use with one or more storage pools, wherein best practices for said first type of data storage system specified in said policy are used in performing said configuration processing, said policy identifying for at least one of said one or more storage pools a processor of the data storage system, wherein said processor for said at least one storage pool is assigned to said at least one storage pool when RAID groups including physical devices in said at least one storage pool are configured into logical devices, said processor being assigned to service I/O requests directed to said logical devices of said at least one storage pool; receiving a provisioning request to provision storage for an application, wherein said provisioning request is received from a user interacting at one of a plurality of levels each associated with a different level of user proficiency for provisioning storage for the application, said provisioning request including a provisioning requirement expressed using one or more application-specific data elements customized for the application and the particular one of the plurality of levels at which the user is interacting; and translating the provisioning requirement to one or more generic storage requirements expressed using data elements that are application independent.