Patent ID: 7827147

Claim:
A computer system comprising: one or more storage pools; a plurality of hosts coupled to said one or more storage pools via a network; and at least a first metabase server comprising a metabase coupled to at least one storage pool of said one or more storage pools via a network and coupled to a first host and a second host of said plurality of hosts via a network, wherein said metabase comprises metadata for both the first host and the second host of the plurality of hosts; and wherein each of the first host and the second host is configured to: convey data to one or more of said storage pools via said network; and store metadata associated with said data in said metabase; wherein in response to detecting an amount of metadata stored in the first metabase has reached a threshold value, the system is configured to: generate a query to discover whether there are metabases other than the first metabase coupled to the system that have capacity available for storing additional metadata; identify a second metabase of a second metabase server as being a metabase that has capacity available for storing additional metadata, responsive to said query; identify one or more hosts of the plurality of hosts that have metadata stored in said first metabase; select a particular host of the one or more hosts for redistribution; add a connection link between the second metabase server and the particular host responsive to selecting said particular host for redistribution, wherein the second metabase server is different from the first metabase server; redistribute at least a portion of the metadata associated with the particular host from the first metabase server to the second metabase of the second metabase server; and configure the particular host to utilize the second metabase server for accesses to said at least a portion of the metadata instead of the first metabase server.