Patent attributes
A method, system, computer system, and computer-readable medium to classify a storage device on a SAN prior to allocating the storage device for data storage. A device accessible via a storage area network is detected, and access to the device by a node on the storage area network is established. The device is accessed by a recognizer to determine the type of the device and information about contents of the device. The type of the device can be checked for compatibility with a requester sending a request for a storage device. By checking the compatibility between storage devices and nodes before allocation, spending resources to allocate incompatible storage is avoided and costs of storage management are reduced. Classification information about devices and nodes can be stored in a persistent data store that can be accessed by nodes connected to the SAN.