Patent ID: 7447859

Claim:
A storage subsystem coupled to a computer, comprising: a logical storage device to which an I/O process is performed by said computer; a determination unit which determines whether an access to said logical storage device is permitted or not, in accordance with an instruction from said computer for an operation to be performed with respect to said logical storage device; and a processing unit responsive to said instruction from said computer which processing unit performs said operation without involving said computer, in accordance with a determination result produced by said determination unit, wherein, in response to said instruction from said computer, said determination unit determines whether or not an access to the logical storage device for said instruction is permitted based on a correspondence between identification information of said computer and identification information of said logical storage device, wherein, if said instruction is permitted to the access to said logical storage device, said determination unit determines whether or not accesses to a source logical storage device and a destination logical storage device among said logical storage device and another logical storage device are permitted, based on a correspondence between identification information of said computer and identification information of said source logical storage device and a correspondence between said identification information of said computer and identification information of said destination logical storage device, said identification information of said source logical storage device and said destination logical storage device being indicated in said instruction, and wherein said another logical storage device is one of a logical storage device of said storage subsystem, an external logical storage device coupled to said storage subsystem, or a logical storage device of another storage subsystem coupled to said storage subsystem.