Patent ID: 7363286

Claim:
A method of performing an operation on a multi-platform heterogeneous network comprising: (a) obtaining path alias table (PAT) information necessary to create a PAT, wherein the PAT information comprises one or more aliases and location information necessary to locate a desired path for the one or more aliases; (b) resolving the one or more aliases using the PAT information by: (i) finding the desired path for the one or more aliases within a file system of a server; and (ii) building the PAT comprising the one or more aliases and the desired paths for each alias; (c) storing the PAT in a memory on the server; (d) receiving a request for an operation from a client, wherein: (i) the request comprises one of the aliases; and (ii) the server file system and the PAT are not exposed to the client; (e) examining the PAT for the one of the aliases received from the client in the request; and (f) performing the requested operation using the desired path that corresponds to the alias in the PAT.