Coalescing metadata for mirroring to a remote storage node in a cluster storage system

A method, comprising:

• receiving a plurality of data and metadata sets from a client, each received data or metadata set comprising a data or metadata request from the client to store the data or metadata set to a remote node;
• producing a plurality of metadata chains, each metadata chain comprising a grouping of at least two received metadata requests wherein at least one of the metadata chains comprises at least a new received metadata request and a previous received metadata request to be stored to a same storage address location at the remote node;
• storing each received metadata request to a metadata request (MR) data structure according to the time order the requests are received, each metadata chain comprising a head metadata request comprising an earliest received metadata request in the metadata chain and a tail metadata request comprising the last received metadata request in the metadata chain;
• and
• transmitting a representative metadata request that comprises the tail metadata in the metadata chain to the remote node for storage.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon instructions for performing a method of facilitating storage system mirroring, which when executed by a at least one machine, causes the machine to:

• receive a plurality of data and metadata sets from a client, each received data or metadata set comprising a data or metadata request from the client to store the data or metadata set to a remote node;
• produce a plurality of metadata chains, each metadata chain comprising a grouping of at least two received metadata requests wherein at least one of the metadata chains comprises at least a new received metadata request and a previous received metadata request to be stored to a same storage address location at the remote node;
• store each received metadata request to a metadata request (MR) data structure according to the time order the requests are received, each metadata chain comprising a head metadata request comprising an earliest received metadata request in the metadata chain and a tail metadata request comprising a last received metadata request in the metadata chain;
• and
• transmit a representative metadata request that comprises the tail metadata in the metadata chain to the remote node for storage.