Patent ID: 8775544

Claim:
A method for dynamically switching between communications protocols used in communicating with each of a plurality of physical computing devices, the method comprising: requesting, by a storage delivery management service executing on a first server, an enumeration of communication protocols supported by a storage system executing on a second server in a storage area network; requesting, by the storage delivery management service, an enumeration of communication protocols supported by a first physical computing device executing a virtual machine; identifying, by the storage delivery management service, a first communication protocol supported by both the storage system and the first physical computing device; configuring, by the storage delivery management service, the storage system to communicate with the first physical computing device according to the first communications protocol, the storage system providing, to the virtual machine, access to a virtual storage resource; receiving, by the storage delivery management service, a request to migrate the virtual machine from the first physical computing device to a second physical computing device; reconfiguring, by the storage delivery management service, the storage system to communicate with the second physical computing device according to a second communications protocol supported by both the storage system and the second physical computing device; migrating, by the storage delivery management service, to the second physical computing device, the virtual machine; and transmitting, by the storage delivery management service, to the second physical computing device, an identification of the storage system providing access to the virtual storage resource for the migrated virtual machine.