A system for write forwarding in a storage environment employing
distributed virtualization includes a first and a second storage server
providing access to a first and a second physical storage device,
respectively, a virtual device server and a virtual device client. The
virtual device server may be configured to aggregate storage in the first
and second physical storage device into a virtual storage device and make
the virtual storage device accessible to the virtual device client for
I/O operations. An update requested by the virtual device client may
require a first physical write operation at the first physical storage
device and a second physical write operation at the second physical
device. The virtual device client may be configured to send an update
request to the first storage server, rather than to both the first and
the second storage servers. The first storage server may respond to the
update request by starting the first physical write operation, and
forwarding a request for the second physical write operation to the
second storage server.