The present invention is related to the field of data storage systems.
Data storage systems have long been specialized, purpose-built hardware devices specifically tailored for providing secondary storage to separate host computer systems. Common examples include (1) an integrated cached disk array (ICDA), which includes an array of physical disk drives, semiconductor storage cache, and storage processors interfacing to the host computers using storage-oriented protocols, and (2) network-attached storage or NAS, which has generally similar structure while providing a network-oriented connection (e.g., TCP-IP) and typically a distributed file system (e.g., CIFS) interface to the hosts.
There is an industry trend toward so-called software-defined storage, in which data storage is provided by specialized software-implemented (or “virtualized”) appliances using more generic hardware. In some cases, a virtualized storage appliance may execute substantially the same software image as a corresponding purpose-built storage system, with modification as necessary to accommodate the generic underlying hardware substituted for the more specialized purpose-built hardware.