Patent ID: 7904681

Claim:
A method for enabling migration of data from a source logical device to a target logical device, wherein the source logical device is in signal communication with the target logical device, the method comprising: confirming the coherency of data on the source logical device and the target logical device; unmapping a first pseudoname from a source logical device identifier, wherein the source logical device identifier comprises information specific to the source logical device; wherein, prior to unmapping, the first pseudoname represents the source logical device in a manner that is independent of the physical paths by which the source logical device is accessible from a host computer, wherein each of the physical paths has a respective distinct native name, wherein the host computer includes mapping layers comprising a storage system mapping layer lower than a multi-path mapping layer, which is lower than a file system/logical volume mapping (LVM) layer and an application layer, wherein the multi-path mapping layer includes a multi-path driver to select one of the physical paths by routing an I/O command to one of the native names, wherein the host computer includes multiple host bus adaptors to provide the multiple physical paths from the host computer to the source logical device identifier, wherein the multi-path mapping layer selects one of the paths on a per access basis; unmapping, by the multi-path mapping layer, a second pseudoname from a target logical device identifier, wherein the target logical device identifier comprises information specific to the target logical device; and mapping, by the multi-path mapping layer, the first pseudoname to the target logical device identifier, wherein the migration, and the steps of unmapping the first pseudoname, unmapping the second pseudoname, and mapping the first pseudoname, are performed by the multi-path mapping layer on the host computer without changes to the file system/LVM layer, wherein the first and second pseudonames are visible to the file system/LVM layer on the host computer, wherein the source logical device and the target logical device are physical devices presented to the host computer by the same or different storage arrays.