Autonomic block-level hierarchical storage management for storage networks

A Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) system connects client systems to physical storage devices via a storage virtualization system (SVS) which is embedded in a storage network. The SVS provides virtual disk volumes to the client systems as an abstraction of the physical storage devices. The client systems have no direct connection to the physical storage devices and the SVS provides an abstract view of these devices, which allows it to utilize the available physical storage space by spreading storage assigned to the individual client systems across the physical storage devices. Within the SVS, a block-mapping table (BMT) translates each virtual block address being issued by the client systems to a corresponding physical block address.