Patent ID: 8055723

Claim:
A method for providing on-demand storage capacity to a local storage server including a virtual repository volume comprising a defined virtual memory capacity and a staging area volume in communication with the virtual repository volume, the method comprising: assigning an amount of memory space on the local storage server to a customer; associating the local storage server with a customer computing device via a network; associating a remote storage server comprising a virtual array site with the local storage server via the network; creating a virtual array on the virtual array site, the virtual array incorporating one or more attributes selectable by the customer, the one or more attributes comprising at least one of an array type, a device type, and a number of arrays to supplement the amount of memory space in the local storage server; creating a virtual extent pool associated with the virtual array; creating a volume associated with the virtual extent pool, the volume comprising at least a portion of the virtual array site; associating a first pointer in the virtual repository volume to first locations in the staging area volume; and associating a second pointer in the staging area volume to second locations in the remote storage server, wherein: the staging area volume is configured to store an amount of data equal to an expected largest file size minus an expected bandwidth of the remote storage server, a physical storage capacity of the remote storage server is a same amount as the defined virtual memory capacity, and the staging area volume temporarily stores physical data prior to the physical data being copied to the remote storage server, the physical data copied in accordance with the second pointer.