Patent ID: 7188125

Claim:
A system comprising: a first data storage system for storing a data volume; a network appliance apart from the first data storage system; a first node for transmitting a first write-data transaction to the first data storage system and to the network appliance, wherein the first write-data transaction comprises first data to be written to the data volume, wherein the first write-data transaction transmitted to the first data storage system is identical to the first write-data transaction transmitted to the network appliance; a second node for transmitting a second write-data transaction to the first data storage system and to the network appliance, wherein the second write-data transaction comprises second data to be written to the data volume, wherein the second write-data transaction transmitted to the first data storage system is identical to the second write-data transaction transmitted to the network appliance; wherein the network appliance is configured to transmit third and fourth write-data transactions either synchronously or asynchronously to a third node that is in data communication with a replica of the data volume, wherein the third and fourth transactions comprise the first and second data, respectively.