Patent ID: 8271612

Claim:
A method of providing on-demand storage capacity on a remote storage server to a customer, comprising: receiving an activation request from the customer to activate the storage capacity; subsequent to receiving the activation request from the customer, executing a command on the remote storage server to provide a virtual array site code to the customer; receiving the virtual array site code, wherein the virtual array site code is provided by the remote storage server to the customer for a reserved portion of the remote storage server; virtually connecting the remote storage server to a local storage server of the customer in response to receiving the virtual array site code, the virtual array site code returned to the remote storage server by the customer for the reserved portion of the remote storage server; confirming a portion of the remote storage server is reserved on the remote storage server for the virtual array site code; and creating a virtual array site object on the local storage server corresponding to an array site object reserved on the remote storage server, wherein attributes created on the remote storage server are the same for both the virtual array site object and the array site object.