Apparatus and method for configuring storage capacity on a network for common use

摘要

An apparatus and method for identifying unused storage capacity of a number of network storage devices, and configuring at least a portion of the unused storage capacity as a logical storage device. The invention is preferably embodied in computer readable program code. The unused storage capacity may be identified by monitoring the number of network storage devices and automatically determining the unused storage capacity thereof. Alternatively, user-defined parameters may be used for identifying the unused storage capacity. At least a portion of the identified storage capacity is allocated for common use as at least one logical device. The allocated storage capacity is managed according to a management policy so that the allocated memory is not overwritten, data is not backed up to the same physical device, etc.