One embodiment is a method and apparatus for managing a virtual data storage
object in a computer system including at least one host and at least one storage
device that present at least one storage disk to the host as a storage resource.
The host includes at least one of an LVM and a file system. The virtual data storage
object is created so that at least one of a logical volume and a file is employed
as a storage resource to store data stored to the virtual data storage object.
Another embodiment forms a virtual data storage object with data images stored
on logical volumes from LVMs on different hosts. A further embodiment forms a virtual
data storage object with one data image stored to a disk and another stored to
a logical volume. Another embodiment is directed to a method and apparatus for
distributing the metadata that defines a virtual storage object about the computer system.
