Patent ID: 7024467

Claim:
A method of accessing a first file on a disk system on one of a plurality of computer systems from a program executing on another of the plurality of computer systems, wherein: the plurality of computer systems comprises: a first computer system containing the program communicating through an API with a first interface system, and a second computer system containing the disk system and a second interface system for communicating with the first interface system and for reading from and writing to the disk system; the first computer system and the second computer system are heterogeneous computer systems having different file formats and word structures; said method comprising: A) opening a first session from the program via the API through the first interface system to the second interface system in order to access the first file on the disk system; B) blocking via the API, the first plurality of records into a first plurality of blocks wherein the first plurality of blocks are to be written as a portion of the first file; C) transmitting the first plurality of blocks over the first session from a first one of the plurality of computer systems to a second one of the plurality of computer systems; D) unblocking the first plurality of blocks into a second plurality of records on the second one of the plurality of computer systems; and E) automatically closing the first session after completing the transmitting in step (C).