Patent ID: 7213113

Claim:
A method for preparing for playing a captured trace of I/O commands in a data storage environment including a host computer and a first data storage system that is in communication with the host computer, the first data storage system having physical storage devices, the data storage environment including data storage volumes representing data stored on the physical storage devices, the method comprising steps of: preparing an accessed trace from the first data storage system for being played as a replication of a trace of workload data on at least one data storage volume of a second data storage system, wherein the step of preparing comprises: accessing a trace of I/O commands from the host computer to the first data storage system that are experienced on at least one of the data storage volumes of the data storage environment; adjusting a configuration of volumes of the second data storage system based on a difference between the first data storage system and the second data storage system and based on the trace of I/O commands; analyzing the trace of I/O commands; and playing a replication of the trace of I/O commands on the at least one data storage volume of the second data storage system.