SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSIGNING DATA COLLECTION AGENTS TO STORAGE AREA NETWORK NODES IN A STORAGE AREA NETWORK RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Data collection agents are assigned to storage area network nodes in a storage area network resource management system, such that the bandwidth and cost of data collection are equitably distributed among data collection agents. Data collection overlaps and load imbalances are eliminated across the data collection agents, creating approximately equal partitions of bandwidth and data collection for each data collection agent. Graph partitioning is used to accomplish load balancing. The assignment of data collection agents to storage area network nodes equitably distributes the bandwidth and processing costs among the data collection agents and ensures a load balance.