System and method for managing a non-volatile storage resource as a shared resource in a distributed system

A data storage system comprising:

• a plurality of hosts;
• a storage management system, operatively coupled to the plurality of hosts;
• the storage management system storing instructions which, when executed, cause:
• receiving, from at least one of the hosts, requests to write data to a relatively high-performance storage device;
• in response to the requests, writing data to the relatively high-performance storage device;
• wherein writing the data includes appending write data to a log within the relatively high-performance storage device;
• associating respective sequence numbers with each write of data, by the at least one of the hosts, to the loci within the relatively high-performance storage device;
• according to an allocation policy, indicating to a particular host, of the plurality of hosts, that it should limit its use of the relatively high-performance storage device;
• after indicating to the particular host that it should limit its use of the relatively high-performance storage device:
• receiving, from the particular host, an indication of data to discard from the relatively high-performance storage device;
• and
• discarding the data that corresponds to the indication from the relatively high-performance storage device;
• wherein receiving the indication of data to discard includes receiving a request by the particular host to truncate the log up to a specified one of the sequence numbers;
• and
• wherein discarding the data that corresponds to the indication includes discarding, from the log, write data having sequence numbers less than or equal to the specified one of the sequence numbers.