US Patent 7984253 Architecture for virtualization of networked storage resources

An architecture for managing a plurality of storage area networks including a plurality of data storage volumes and one or more hosts, wherein the volumes are in a switched storage network in the storage area networks the architecture comprising one or more processors in communication with switching capability for the switched storage network, wherein the one or more processors include program logic for embodying logical constructions of a storage presentation layer including target virtualization and logical unit (LU) virtualization; and a volume presentation layer including volume virtualization for replication of data.