Patent ID: 8892713

Claim:
A storage system which manages storage areas respectively provided by a plurality of mutually connected physical storage apparatuses as a logical pool which spans the plurality of physical storage apparatuses, and which provides, to a host computer, virtual storage which is configured from virtual volumes to which the storage areas of the logical pool have been assigned, wherein the physical storage apparatuses comprise: a plurality of storage drives comprising physical storage areas; a controller portion which manages storage provided by the physical storage apparatuses; and a license management portion which manages licenses which are assigned to the virtual storage by sharing the licenses between a plurality of the physical storage apparatuses which comprise the virtual storage, wherein the controller portion and the license management portion in the same physical storage apparatus synchronize and retain first information enabling the controller portion to manage the storage and second information enabling the license management portion to manage the license, wherein, in the plurality of physical storage apparatuses sharing the license, the respective license management portions maintain the second information relating to the license using the same content, wherein, if at least either of the first information and the second information is modified in the physical storage apparatus, the controller portion and the license management portion in the physical storage apparatus updates the first or second information to achieve mutual synchronization by means of the modified information, and wherein the license management portion in the physical storage apparatus references the second information and reports the updated first or second information to the license management portion of the other physical storage apparatuses sharing the license, and instructs the license management portions to perform an update by means of the transmitted information.