Patent ID: 7194594

Claim:
A storage area management system provided to a computer system having a plurality of storage areas and a plurality of application programs using one or more of the storage areas as a resource, the storage area management system comprising: a management data obtaining unit for obtaining area management data in which one or more storage area IDs identifying one or more storage area candidates among the plurality of storage areas is associated with each application program; a policy data obtaining unit for obtaining selection policy data stating a guideline for storage area assignments based on operational status of the application programs; an operational status detecting unit for detecting operational status of each of the plurality of application programs; an area assignment determining unit for using the detected operational status of each of the plurality of application programs and the obtained selection policy data to refer the obtained area management data, and searching through the one or more storage area IDs associated with each application program to extract from the one or more storage area IDs one storage area ID of the storage area to assign to each application program, so that the storage areas to assign to the application programs are changed in accordance with the operational statuses of the application programs; and an assignment information output unit for outputting assignment information about which application program to assign which storage area, based on the storage area ID extracted for each application program; wherein, in the area management data, one or a plurality of assignable areas are prepared for each application program; each assignable area of each application program is associated with one or a plurality of the storage area IDs, and an index indicating a level selected from a plurality of levels; the selection policy data records a plurality of index levels associated with a plurality of operational statuses of the application programs; and the area assignment determining unit, for each application program, extracts from the obtained selection policy data an index associated with the detected operational status for said each application program, references the area management data, searches for and retrieves an assignable area associated with the extracted index and said each application program, and extracts a storage area ID from the one or plurality of storage area IDs associated with the retrieved assignable area.