Patent ID: 7640416

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of automatically relating components of a storage area network represented as at least one volume container, comprising: representing storage volumes distributed among a plurality of data files as a data set; assigning each of a plurality of storage volumes in said network to at least one of said volume containers, said volume containers representing a membership collection of said storage volumes contained therein; assigning mapping, security, and zoning features, automatically, to each of said storage volumes contained in a single volume container, said features being associated with said volume container; mapping each of the plurality of storage volumes in each of the at least one volume container to all associated host servers; mapping the at least one of the plurality of host servers to an associated one of the storage volumes, wherein each host server may be mapped to each of said at least one volume container containing a storage volume to which said host server is associated; assigning access, security and zones of said volume container to said host server mapped to said volume container; automatically mapping an introduced host server to the storage volumes in the volume container; assigning access, security and zones of said volume container to said introduced host server mapped to said volume container; and automatically mapping an introduced storage volume to the host volumes in the volume container in order to automatically relate the storage volumes and the host servers in the volume container; interspersing mapping of the volume containers with mapping of the host servers; assigning mapping, security, and zoning features to said introduced storage volume associated with said mapped single volume container, said features being associated with said volume container; replicating the storage area network by placing the introduced host server, and storage volumes accessed by the database in a volume container and replicating the volume container, and its database, database log, and database indices as a set; monitoring at the volume container for a change in configuration of the volume container; modifying a previous mapping between the host servers and the storage volumes after a change in configuration of the volume container; and displaying the mapping between the host servers and the storage volumes on a display device.