A data storage infrastructure is disclosed for a communication network that produces a plurality of data flows of network data. The data storage infrastructure comprises a plurality of data storage systems and a storage management system. The data storage systems are configured to store the network data using a plurality of service classes, wherein different ones of the data storage systems provide different ones of the service classes. The storage management system is configured to process characteristics for the data flows to assign individual ones of the data flows to individual ones of a plurality of data classes and to assign individual ones of the data flows to individual ones of the data storage systems based on the data class assignments.