The interface logic 114 allows an application 212 or kernel space-based filesystem 222 to utilize the user space IO load balancing and submission functionality 216 without requiring a reconfiguration of the application 212 or the kernel space-based filesystem 222.

Illustrative embodiments of the techniques and functionality of interface logic 114 will now be described in more detail with reference to the flow diagram of FIG. 4.

The process as shown in FIG. 4 includes steps 400 through 412, and is suitable for use in the system 100 but is more generally applicable to other types of systems comprising multiple host devices and a shared storage system. The process will be described with reference also to FIGS. 1 and 3.

At step 400, in conjunction with or after a boot up of a given host device 102, the IO load balancing and submission functionality 216 of the given host device 102 performs path discovery and establishes connections between the host device 102-1 and the storage array 105 of the storage system. For example, the IO load balancing and submission functionality 216 may establish connections between the host device 102-1 and the storage array 105 from the user space 210 using one or more user space-based communication protocols such as, e.g., RDMA, TCP, or other communication protocols. For these connections, various native paths between the host device 102 and the logical volumes of the storage array 105 are generated.