Patent ID: 7584222

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing a plurality of processes concurrent access to shared storage, the method comprising: at each of multiple computers having access to the shared storage, maintaining a unified address space that maps locations of the shared storage to corresponding data access information, the corresponding data access information indicating access rights granted to the multiple computers for accessing different portions of the shared storage; receiving, from the plurality of processes, corresponding requests for access to a common location in the shared storage; and processing the corresponding requests received from the plurality of processes by utilizing the unified address space to map the requests into the data access information and identify, at respective computers, access properties associated with the common storage location to identify possible contention issues associated with other processes having access to the common location in the shared storage; at a given computer of the multiple computers: receiving a request to access a file in the shared storage; converting an identifier associated with the file to an address value in the unified address space; mapping the address value in the unified address space to a pointer, the pointer pointing to specific data access information specifying access rights for the file; and utilizing the pointer to obtain the specific data access information to determine which, if any, of the multiple computers has current access rights to the file in shared storage, the method further comprising: accessing a property object in the specific data access information, the property object corresponding to the address value in the unified address space, the property object associated with a range starting at the address value in the unified address space to identify a current status of access rights of file data with respect to other computers having access to portions of the shared storage, the property object specifying access rights for a portion of shared storage; utilizing the property object to identify a current status of access rights of file data with respect to other computers and their current accessibility rights with respect to a common volume in the shared storage.