Computer system allowing any computer to copy any storage area within a storage system

Abstract

A computer system having a plurality of host computers and a storage system is provided which allows any one host computer to perform a global copy operation on any arbitrary or all storage areas in the storage system. To this end, storage areas provided by the disk devices are grouped into groups by allocating group numbers to a plurality of specified storage areas. The copy operation can be performed by specifying desired groups. Each of the groups is made up of sub-groups and the sub-groups are defined for each computer to assure a consistency of copy order of the sub-groups.

1 . A computer system comprising:
 a first storage apparatus providing a plurality of first volumes;   a second storage apparatus coupled to the first storage apparatus and providing a plurality of second volumes storing copy data of the plurality of first volumes by a synchronous remote copy;   a first host computer sending a first write request to the first storage apparatus; and   a second host computer sending a second write request to the first storage apparatus,   wherein the first host computer runs a first operating system and communicates with the first storage apparatus with a first protocol, and   wherein the second host computer runs a second operating system which is different to the first operating system and communicates with the second storage apparatus with a second protocol which is different to the first protocol.   
   
   
       2 . A computer system according to  claim 1 ,
 wherein the first storage apparatus manages a plurality of pair between the plurality of first volumes and the plurality of second volumes, and   wherein the first storage apparatus manages a copy group including the plurality of pair.   
   
   
       3 . A remote copy method for a computer system including a first storage system and a second storage system and a first computer and a second computer, comprising:
 by the first storage apparatus, providing a plurality of first volumes;   by the second storage apparatus, providing a plurality of second volumes;   by the first host computer, running a first operating system;   by the second host computer, running a second operating system which is different to the first operating system;   by the first host computer, sending a first write request to the first storage apparatus by a first communication protocol;   by a second host computer, sending a second write request to the first storage apparatus by a second communication protocol which is different to the first communication protocol; and   by the first storage apparatus, sending the first write data and the second write data to the second storage apparatus by a synchronous remote copy.   
   
   
       4 . A remote copy method according to  claim 3 , comprising:
 by the first storage apparatus, managing a plurality of pair status between the plurality of first volumes and the plurality of second volumes; and   by the first storage apparatus, managing a copy group status based on the plurality of pair status.