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Abstract

Virtual storage arrays consolidate data storage from branch locations at data centers. The virtual storage array appears to storage clients as a local data storage; however, the virtual storage array data is actually stored at a data center. To overcome the bandwidth and latency limitations of wide area networks between branch locations and the data center, systems and methods predict, prefetch, and cache at the branch location storage blocks that are likely to be requested in the future by storage clients. When this prediction is successful, storage block requests are fulfilled from branch locations' storage block caches. Predictions may leverage an understanding of the semantics and structure of the high-level data structures associated with the storage blocks. Prefetching agents on storage clients monitor storage requests to determine the associations between requested storage blocks and the corresponding high-level data structures as well as other attributes useful for prediction.

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