Patent ID: 7949512

Claim:
A computing system for simulating data storage operations, the computing system comprising: at least one virtual data agent executing in one or more computer processors, the virtual data agent configured to obtain application specific data associated with an application, wherein the application specific data comprises a plurality of different data formats, the virtual data agent further comprising a plurality of different types of data agents wherein each of the different types of data agents is associated with one of the different data formats of the application specific data; a storage device emulation module executing in one or more computers, wherein the storage device emulation module comprises different types of simulated storage devices that are null devices that do not store the application specific data, wherein the different types of simulated storage devices are configured to simulate storage operations associated one or more of the different types of application specific data obtained by the different types of data agents associated with the virtual data agent; and a storage manager component executing in one or more computers that automatically assigns the different types of simulated storage devices based on the different types of data agents associated with the virtual data agent.