Patent ID: 7054890

Claim:
A method for managing a data imaging service from a management terminal in a distributed computer system having a host computer system with at least one storage device connected to the computer system by driver software, the method comprising: (a) inserting an interface layer between the driver software and the storage device, the interface layer exporting a platform dependent API comprising a plurality of API methods that controls data passing between the driver software and the storage device; (b) running, in the host computer system, management facade software that receives calls to platform-independent methods and generates at least one API method call to the interface layer in order to execute the platform-independent method calls; (c) running, in the host computer system, a federated bean that generates platform-independent method calls to the management facade to control the interface layer via the plurality of API methods; and (d) controlling the federated bean to designate master volumes, shadow volumes and bitmap volumes and to transfer data between specified master and shadow volumes.