Patent ID: 8898444

Claim:
A system comprising: a first computer system including a first operating system and first hardware native to said first computer system, wherein the first computer system accesses storage devices in accordance with a first format that is native to the first computer system; a second computer system including a simulated computing environment and a second operating system different from the first operating system, the simulated computing environment including a simulated operating system that simulates at least a portion of said first operating system and the simulated computing environment including second simulation software simulating at least a portion of the first hardware; a data storage system connected to the second computer system over a first connection thereby providing the second computer system access to a first storage device of the data storage system, said first storage device being accessible to the second computer system over the first connection operating in accordance with a first protocol native to the first computer system and not the second computer system, the second simulation software providing emulation capabilities in accordance with the first protocol native to the first computer system and not the second computer system, wherein the data storage system includes the first storage device having data stored in accordance with the first format and a second storage device having data stored in accordance with a second format that is native to the second computer system, said first format being non-native to the second computer system, said second computer system issuing I/O operations to both the first storage device and the second storage device whereby the second computer system accesses the first storage device using the simulated computing environment; and a network connection between the first computer system and the second computer system, wherein the first computer system is provided access to the first storage device by issuing I/O operations to the first storage device indirectly through the second computer system whereby the second computer system receives the I/O operations from the first computer system and then the second computer system uses the simulated computing environment to issue the I/O operations to the first storage device.