Methods and apparatus for providing quality of service for legacy applications

An apparatus for ensuring a particular quality of service level for an application in a computer system, the apparatus comprising:

• a processor operative to support an operating system of the computer system, the operating system being operative to associate a QoS requirement attribute with each of a plurality of files accessible to the application, and to implement a requirement broker between the application and the operating system, wherein the requirement broker intercepts one or more designated system calls and automatically requests from the system QoS guarantees in accordance with the QoS requirement attributes of files accessed by the application;
• and
• a memory coupled to the processor and operative to store at least a subset of the associated QoS requirement attributes.

An article of manufacture comprising a machine-readable medium for storing one or more programs for ensuring a particular quality of service level for an application in a computer system, wherein the one or more programs when executed implement the steps of:

• associating a QoS requirement attribute with each of a plurality of files accessible to the application;
• and
• implementing a requirement broker between the application and an operating system of the computer system, wherein the requirement broker intercepts one or more designated system calls and automatically requests from the system QoS guarantees in accordance with the QoS requirement attributes of files accessed by the application.

An apparatus for use in a computer system, the apparatus comprising:

• a processor-implemented operating system operative to associate a QoS requirement attribute with each of a plurality of files accessible to the application, and to implement a requirement broker between the application and the operating system, wherein the requirement broker intercepts one or more designated system calls and automatically requests from the system QoS guarantees in accordance with the QoS requirement attributes of files accessed by the application.