This invention is a system and a method for operating a storage server that provides read or write access to a data in a data network using a new architecture. The method of processing I/Os in response to a request by a client of the storage server executes one or more services communicated by a policy engine. The I/Os received from the application are tagged and catalogued to create co-related I/O patterns. The policy engine is then updated with the results of processing the I/Os after executing services on those I/Os.