Abstract: Storage system characteristics are processed to generate a service level for a storage system that is one of a fixed number of service levels. Application specific usage tags describing application types the storage system is appropriate to support may also be generated. The service level and application specific usage tags are stored into a storage system capability profile and made available, together with any metadata needed to describe the application specific usage tags, to a system associated with a virtualization environment. A request to provision storage resources for a virtual machine is subsequently received, including a policy profile having a requested service level and one or more application specific usage tags describing the storage requirements of the virtual machine. If the policy profile matches the capability profile, storage resources are provisioned for the virtual machine from the storage system.

Abstract: Configuration information from multiple sources about hardware and software of a storage system are collected and stored in a configuration database having an extensible framework. Common application program interfaces (API) are provided for storage utility applications to access the configuration database. A backup and restore engine collects and stores the configuration information at periodic intervals or on demand, maintains prior versions of the stored information in an archive, and restores the storage system with a selected version. A distributor engine applies format conversion and filtering to produce diagnostic bundles of configuration information for multiple utility applications. A graphical user interface provides an administrator with a set of tools for operating the backup and restore and distributor engines and for viewing, dumping, comparing, and validating the contents of selected versions in order to diagnose and solve configuration problems.