Patent ID: 8589504

Claim:
A method of migrating data from a source storage array to a destination storage array and using management information to send management messages to the storage arrays, the method comprising: copying data from the source storage array to the destination storage array during a data migration event; associating a first array management interface with the source storage array and a second array management interface with the destination storage array, the array management interface of each storage array including management information that a management application executing on a host can use to communicate with that storage array; and exchanging the first and second array management interfaces during the data migration event transparently with respect to a management application program and other I/O activity executing on a host so that the array management interface associated with the destination storage array becomes associated with the source storage array and the array management interface associated with the source storage array becomes associated with the destination storage array, wherein the step of associating includes assigning a network address to the source storage array and to the destination storage array, and wherein the first array management interface includes the network address assigned to the source storage array and the second array management interface includes the network address assigned to the destination storage array, and wherein the step of exchanging includes exchanging the network addresses associated with the source and destination storage arrays at a Domain Name System (DNS) server such that the network address associated with the destination storage array becomes associated with the source storage array and the network address associated with the source storage array becomes associated with the destination storage array.