Automated Tiered Storage is the automated progression or demotion of data across different tiers (types) of storage devices and media. This movement of data is automatic to the different types of disk according to performance and capacity requirements.
Many vendors including DataCor,

Data Progression examples from DataCore Software and Dell Compellent

A software based example of automated tiering which can work across SSDs, Flash Memory devices, different types of storage devices and arrays and Cloud storage is avaiable from DataCore and is a feature of their storage hypervisor software.
Other examples can be found in this 'comparison article on auto tiered storage'http://searchstorage.techtarget.co.uk/feature/Automated-storage-tiering-product-comparison
An example of Automated Tiered Storage in a hardware storage array is a feature called Data Progression from Compellent Technologies. Data Progression has the capability to transparently move blocks of data between different drive types and RAID groups such as RAID 10 and RAID 5. The blocks are part of the "same virtual volume even as they span different RAID groups and drive types. Compellent can do this because they keep metadata about every block -- which allows them to keep track of each block and its associations."

External links

• http://searchstorage.techtarget.co.uk/feature/Automated-storage-tiering-product-comparison
• http://www.compellent.com/Products/Software/Automated-Tiered-Storage.aspx
• http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/storage-soup/datacore-adds-support-for-cloud-as-storage-tier/