Patent ID: 7117386

Claim:
A method for recovering data from a target site upon the occurrence of a disaster at a primary site comprising: performing data replication processing propagating consistent point in time copies of data from a primary site to a target site; performing restart processing that determines a processing state of said data replication processing at a time of said disaster; propagating a most recent one of said consistent point in time copies of data from said target site to said primary site, wherein said performing data replication processing is performed from a first host computer connected to said primary site, and said performing restart processing and said propagating are automatically performed from a second host computer connected to said target site; determining a state of said data replication processing by determining whether a first device in said target site is configured in a pairing relationship with a second device in said target site, wherein said first device is in one of an established state and a split state, said established state indicating that said first device and said second devices are performing data synchronization, and said split state being otherwise; and wherein when a device is in said established state, data operations to said device are disabled with respect to those issued from said first and said second host computers, and when a device is in said split state, said first and second host computers are able to issue data operations using said device.