Abstract: Under the present invention, when an application is deployed, certain information corresponding thereto will be stored in an Enterprise Application Directory (EAD). Thereafter, when an instance of the application is requested (e.g., by a requestor), the information is retrieved from the EAD. In addition, the instance is registered with an Application Access Registry (AAR). Registering the instance involves creating a record in the AAR, generating a unique application access key for the instance, and storing the access key with the information in the record. The access key (and optionally the information) is then returned to the requestor, which can then issue service requests to one or more grid services in the shared computer infrastructure. The service request will include the access key so that the grid service can identify the application by searching for the record in the registry using the access key.

Abstract: Under the present invention storage grid manager is provided that receives requests for storing files from users, based on certain performance parameters, the storage grid manager identifies selected storage cells of the enterprise storage system for storing the files. Thereafter, the storage grid manager routes the requests to the storage grid controllers associated with the selected storage cells. The storage grid controllers control access to the storage cells to ensure that only authorized access is granted. Once the files are stored, the storage grid manager will update a mapping to identify the precise storage cells in which each file is stored. Therefore, when a user issues a request to retrieve a file, the storage grid manager consults the mapping, identifies the corresponding storage cell and retrieves the file.