Patent ID: 8180855

Claim:
A method for configuring a coordinated shared storage architecture utilizing a plurality of storage appliances, comprising: operatively interconnecting the plurality of storage appliances organized as a cluster of storage appliances, wherein each storage appliance provides both storage area network (SAN) services through SAN virtualization and network attached storage (NAS) services through a file system; operatively interconnecting one or more sets of data storage devices with the plurality of storage appliances using at least one intermediate network device; sharing the one or more sets of data storage devices among at least two storage appliances of the plurality of storage appliances; and enabling the at least two storage appliances to be accessed as a Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI) target device by providing a target device driver in each of the at least two storage appliances in the cluster, the target device driver enabling each of the at least two storage appliances to function as the SCSI target device to receive and process a SCSI command sent via the at least one intermediate network device from storage appliances in the cluster to access any of the shared one or more sets of data storage devices.