US Patent 7624170 Integrated storage appliance

A system and method for providing an integrated storage appliance is disclosed. The storage appliance includes a storage subsystem, a process cluster coupled to the storage subsystem, and a customizable software stack that includes storage-access application so executed by the processor cluster, wherein subsystem, processor cluster and software stack are integrated such that the storage appliance exhibits greater combined reliability, higher availability, and higher serviceability characteristics than would be provided by a sum of the characteristics unintegrated components.