Patent ID: 8478954

Claim:
A method of utilizing subgroups in a consistency group comprising the steps of: responsive to input from a system administrator, defining a consistency group in a primary storage comprising a first grouping of logical storage volumes and defining a corresponding consistency group in a secondary storage comprising a second grouping of logical storage volumes such that updates to the primary storage consistency group are copied to the secondary storage consistency group in the same order they were made to the primary storage consistency group; responsive to input from a system administrator, defining a plurality of subgroups in the consistency group in the primary storage and a corresponding plurality of subgroups in the secondary storage; copying by a computer processor the entire primary storage consistency group to the corresponding secondary storage consistency group; detecting by a storage controller an abnormal condition in a process for copying the entire consistency group from primary storage to the corresponding consistency group in secondary storage, the abnormal condition preventing the entire primary storage consistency group from being copied in a timely manner to the corresponding secondary storage consistency group; responsive to the detecting of the abnormal condition, prioritizing by a computer processor the subgroups for copying from the primary storage consistency group to the second storage consistency group according to a business process to improve the abnormal condition; and responsive to the detecting of the abnormal condition, copying by a computer processor at least one subgroup but less than all of the subgroups in the primary storage consistency group to a corresponding at least one subgroup but less than all of the subgroups in the secondary storage consistency group.