Patent US 8,229,899

A system and method is disclosed for maintaining, in a Storage Area Network (SAN), the consistency of a local copy of a remote file system sub-tree obtained from a remote source. Directory structure of the remote file system sub-tree is mapped to a remote container attached to the SAN and each remote object of the remote file system sub-tree is represented as a local object component of the remote container. Next, each of the local objects are labeled with attributes associated with the represented remote object, and metadata describing each of the local objects is stored in a metadata server. Also, a consistency policy is associated with each of the local objects in the remote container (wherein the policy defines conditions for checking freshness of said labeled attributes), and the local object components of remote container is updated in accordance with the consistency policy.