Patent ID: 6950871

Claim:
A computer system, comprising: a plurality of client computers; a plurality of servers; a plurality of storages which have multiple disk drives and keep data in said plurality of disk drives; a local area network (LAN) which connects said computers with said servers; and a storage area network (SAN) which lies between said servers and said storages, wherein said SAN forms a switched circuit network having fiber channel switches and arranged to connect any of said servers and any of said storages through said fiber channel switches, and said computer system comprising: a terminal, which is connected to said LAN and equipped with operation and management software which performs storage management, including management of logical volumes in said storages, management of data arrangement including moving data in one of said logical volumes to another of said logical volumes, management of error monitoring for said storages, management of setting up said fiber channel switches, and management of a server-less backup operation for backing-up data directly from one of said storages to a backup storage of said storages via said SAN without relaying said data via any of said servers or said terminal; wherein the operation and management software of said terminal realizes acquisition of statistical information of resources of said logical volumes; and wherein the operation and management software of said terminal manages said logical volumes in said storages in accordance with said statistical information including usage of logical devices composing said logical volumes, said operation and management software predicting future usage of said logical devices given a proposed allocation of said logical devices based on said usage, and said operation and management software allocating said logical devices in response to a command based on said future usage prediction.