Patent ID: 8024536

Claim:
A method of constructing a replication environment in a storage system having a plurality of sites, each site including one or more host computers, one or more storage apparatuses, and a management computer, the one or more host computers and the one or more storage apparatuses communicating with each other via a first network, and the plurality of sites communicating with the management computer via a second network, comprising: acquiring application configuration information on which application in the host computer at each of the sites uses which volume, from each of the host computers via the second network; creating management computer application configuration information on which application in which host computer at which site uses which volume, using the acquired application configuration information, and storing the management computer application configuration information in a memory unit; acquiring information on an unused volume in each of the storage apparatuses via the second network from each of the storage apparatuses; creating volume configuration information for each of the sites in which the created management computer application configuration information and the acquired information on the unused volume is arranged, and storing the created volume configuration information in the memory unit; selecting, in creating configuration definition information on a copy pair including an original volume into which data in the host computer at a first site among the plurality of sites is written and a duplicated volume into which data at a second site among the plurality of sites is copied, upon specification of an application at the first site and the second site as a copy destination by an input unit, a volume used by the specified application at the first site without duplication by referencing the volume configuration information at the first site among the volume configuration information at each of the sites stored in the memory unit, determining the volume used by the specified application at the first site as a copy source volume, and also determining an unused volume at the specified second site as a copy destination volume by referencing the volume configuration information at the second site among the volume configuration information at each of the sites stored in the memory unit; and creating the configuration definition information on a copy pair associating the determined copy source volume with the determined copy destination volume, and storing the copy pair configuration definition information in the memory unit.