Patent ID: 7650477

Claim:
A method of changing a combination of an asynchronous remote copy pair set between a primary site and a secondary site, wherein the method is implemented in a remote copy system, the remote copy system comprising the primary site and the secondary site, wherein the primary site includes a first primary storage system and a second primary storage system, the first primary storage system having a first primary volume as a source primary volume, to which a primary host issues an I/O request, and a first primary controller controlling the first primary volume, and the second primary storage system having a second primary volume as a destination primary volume and a second primary controller controlling the second primary volume, wherein the secondary site includes a first secondary storage system and a second secondary storage system, the first secondary storage system having a first secondary volume as a source secondary volume and a first secondary controller controlling the first secondary volume, and the second secondary storage system having a second secondary volume as a destination secondary volume and a second secondary controller controlling the second secondary volume, wherein a first asynchronous remote copy pair is defined between the first primary volume and the first secondary volume, wherein the first primary controller executes asynchronous remote copy processing for the first asynchronous remote copy pair to write data in the first secondary volume based on a write request issued to the first primary volume, the method comprising steps of: a first copy pair definition step for defining a copy pair between the first primary volume and the second primary volume; a first copying step for copying data stored in the first primary volume to the second primary volume using the copy pair defined in the first copy pair definition step; a second copy pair definition step for forming a second asynchronous remote copy pair between the second primary volume and the second secondary volume after the first copying step; a second copying step for copying data stored in the second primary volume to the second secondary volume, the second primary volume and the second secondary volume which form the second asynchronous remote copy pair; an I/O request stopping step for stopping the I/O request issued by the primary host to the first primary volume after the second copying step; a copy pair deletion step for deleting the copy pair between the first primary volume and the second primary volume after the I/O request stopping step; and an I/O request destination changing step for changing the destination of the I/O request issued by the primary host from the first primary volume to the second primary volume to resume the processing of the I/O request which is stopped by the I/O stopping step.