Patent ID: 7680997

Claim:
A method of simulating handling failure of at least one of a plurality of data centers, the method, performed by at least one processor, comprising: cloning at least one storage volume at a second data center, wherein there is a synchronous data coupling to transfer data from at least one storage volume at a first data center to the at least one storage volume at the second data center; cloning at least one storage volume at a third data center, wherein there is an asynchronous data coupling to transfer data from the at least one storage volume at the first data center to the at least one storage volume at the third data center and wherein the third data center has an asynchronous backup group; cloning at least one of: buffers used for providing data to the asynchronous backup group and maps used to maintain a record of data sent to the synchronous backup group but not yet sent to the asynchronous backup group; and simulating resuming work at one of the second data center and the third data center using at least one of clones of the buffers and clones of the maps.