System and method for configuring a storage network utilizing a multi-protocol storage appliance

摘要

A system and method for configuring a storage network utilizing one or more storage appliances to utilize the multi-block based protocol nature of the storage appliances. By configuring the storage network, data served by the storage appliance may be accessed by a plurality of protocols simultaneously. Illustratively, a virtual disk (vdisk) may be access by clients using the FCP protocol over a FC network while other clients access the vdisk using the iSCSI protocol over a TCP/IP network.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
simultaneously presenting, by a storage appliance, data over both a first network using a first block-based storage access protocol and over a second network using a second block-based storage access protocol, the first network coupling the storage appliance to one or more clients and the second network coupling the storage appliance to a storage server; receiving from a client, a first request message at the storage appliance to write selected data; in response to receiving the first request message to write the selected data,
(i) executing the first request message to write the selected data at the storage appliance over the first network utilizing the first block-based storage access protocol, and(ii) executing the first request message to write the selected data at the storage server, where the first request message is sent from the client to a backup client utilizing a host-to-host block level replication solution and the backup client utilizing the second block-based storage access protocol to execute the first request message to write the selected data at the storage server over the second network.