During operation of a data center, telemetry data is gathered that is indicative of performance of a storage system. The data center includes a middleware client that abstracts and optimizes storage commands for an application operating in the data center. Via the middleware client, a change in the application's use of the storage system is determined. Responsive to the change in the application, a change in the storage system is determined that will result in an improvement in storage performance for the application. The change to the storage system is applied via the middleware client to affect subsequent access of the storage system by the application.