Patent 7603519 was granted and assigned to Hitachi on October, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A storage system which manages a plurality of storage control apparatus in an integrated manner is provided. An I/O request issued by a host apparatus to a second storage control apparatus is forwarded to the second storage control apparatus through a first storage control apparatus. The first storage control apparatus has management information for the second storage control apparatus, allowing a pair comprising a logical device controlled by the first storage control apparatus and a logical device controlled by the second storage control apparatus to be created. In addition, the first storage control apparatus is capable of controlling the second storage control apparatus.