Systems and methods for performing storage operations in a computer network

1. A method for performing a storage operation on data in a network, the method comprising:

selecting at least one of a plurality of first modules to manage a storage operation, each of the plurality of modules have an index cache associated therewith, wherein each index cache associates a respective module with at least one of a the plurality of storage devices,

wherein at least first and second modules of the plurality of modules are configured to communicate with a plurality of physical network storage devices such that at least two of the physical network storage devices are shared by the first and second modules, and

wherein at least the first and second modules are configured to communicate with a plurality of client devices such that at least two of the client devices are shared by the first and second modules; and

performing the storage operation on data of at least one of the plurality of client devices with the first module and at least one of the plurality of network storage devices; and

storing information about the storage operation in a first index cache associated with the first module.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said selecting one of the plurality of first modules comprises selecting according to an available bandwidth of a network path including the first module.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the storage operation comprises a LAN-free storage operation.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein said selecting further comprises load balancing the plurality of modules.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising selecting the at least one of the plurality of network storage devices with a storage manager module.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein said selecting the at least one of the plurality of network storage devices is based at least in part on a comparison of a storage availability of multiple ones of the plurality of network storage devices.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing a list of at least another module that is configured as a failover module to the first module.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the at least one of the plurality of network storage devices comprises first and second network storage devices.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising querying with a storage manager module other modules to identify the second network storage device when the storage operation spans multiple network storage devices.

10. A system for performing a storage operation on data in a computer network, the system comprising:

a plurality of storage devices;

a plurality of modules, each of which communicates with at least two of the plurality of storage devices and at least two of a plurality of client devices, wherein each of the plurality of modules has an index cache associated therewith, and wherein each index cache associates at least one of the plurality of the modules with at least one of the plurality of storage devices; and

a storage manager module that selects at least one of the plurality of modules to manage a storage operation and at least one of the plurality of storage devices to associate with the storage operation, wherein information about the performance of the storage operation is stored in the index cache associated with the selected at least one of the plurality of modules.

11. The system of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of storage devices comprises a tape library.

12. The system of claim 10 , wherein the selected at least one module is configured to instruct the selected at least one storage device to load at least one of a plurality of media cartridges.

13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the storage operation comprises at least one of archiving, migrating and restoring application-specific data to the loaded at least one media cartridge.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the index cache is configured to store data regarding completion of the storage operation.

15. The system of claim 10 , wherein the storage manager module comprises an index that associates the selected at least one of the plurality of modules with the selected at least one storage device.

16. The system of claim 10 , wherein each of the plurality of modules is associated with authentication information for access control to one or more of the plurality of modules.

17. The system of claim 10 , wherein the storage manager module communicates with the plurality of storage devices, the plurality of modules, and at least one client device generating data associated with the storage operation.

18. The system of claim 10 , wherein at least two of the plurality of modules are associated with a volume of the at least one of the plurality of storage devices.

19. A system for performing a storage operation on data in a computer network, the system comprising:

a plurality of storage devices;

a plurality of means for performing a storage operation, each of said performing means communicating with at least two of the plurality of storage devices and at least two of a plurality of client devices, wherein each of the performing means has an index cache associated therewith, wherein each index cache associates a respective client device with at least one of the plurality of storage devices; and

means for selecting according to a first selection logic one of said plurality of performing means to manage a storage operation, and for selecting at least one of the plurality of storage devices to associate with the storage operation, wherein information about the performance of the storage operation is stored in the index cache associated with the selected at least one of the plurality of client devices.

20. The system of claim 19 , wherein means for selecting comprises load-balancing logic.