Patent ID: 8127062

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a first lock request at a lock manager located on a first network device in a network including the first network device, a second network device, a host device, and at least one physical storage device, wherein the first lock request is received from a lock client located on the second network device and includes information regarding a first region of memory of a virtual storage device, wherein the virtual storage device includes the least one physical storage device; determining whether the first lock request conflicts with a second lock request in a lock grant queue or a lock database corresponding to the lock manager, the second lock request including information regarding a second region of memory to be locked; and placing the first lock request in the lock grant queue or a dependency queue corresponding to the second lock request according to whether the first lock request conflicts with the second lock request, wherein the dependency queue includes lock requests regarding regions of memory to be locked that overlap the second region of memory.