Systems and methods for optimizing storage network functionality. The
methods and systems of the present invention are particularly useful for
optimizing storage network performance for cases in which some components
of the network may be separated by significant distances and/or which
include communication links with relatively limited bandwidth. In certain
aspects, the present invention provides methods and systems for
implementing access to and management of geographically distributed
storage resources through multiple peer-to-peer storage network array
management functions (AMFs) that may also be geographically distributed.
The methods and systems of the present invention, in certain aspects,
provide geographically aware cache sharing, cache replication, cache
coherence, traffic routing, redundancy group structure, source and
destination selection, pre-fetching of data, message gathering and other
useful features.