VIRTUALISATION ENGINE AND METHOD, SYSTEM, AND COMPUTER PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR MANAGING THE STORAGE OF DATA

摘要

A storage management method for use in a storage area network is provided. The storage area network comprises a plurality of host data processors coupled to a storage virtualisation engine, which is coupled to a plurality of physical storage media. Each physical storage media is assigned a tier level. The method comprises providing a storage management policy identifying threshold storage access rates associated with each tier level, mapping blocks of physical storage to corresponding blocks of a virtual disk, and storing metadata associated with a block identifying the tier level of the physical storage to which the block corresponds, mappings between the block and blocks of a virtual disk, and an access rate indicating the rate of access to the data. The access value is periodically compared to at least one threshold rate associated with its tier level. Depending on the result of the comparison, a storage block may then be marked for migration to a physical storage medium of another tier level.