US Patent 7996615 Cache region concept

A method to associate a storage policy with a cache region is disclosed. In this method, a cache region associated with an application is created. The application runs on virtual machines, and where a first virtual machine has a local memory cache that is private to the first virtual machine. The first virtual machine additionally has a shared memory cache that is shared by the first virtual machine and a second virtual machine. Additionally, the cache region is associated with a storage policy. Here, the storage policy specifies that a first copy of an object to be stored in the cache region is to be stored in the local memory cache and that a second copy of the object to be stored in the cache region is to be stored in the shared memory cache.