Patent ID: 7171532

Claim:
A system for data lifecycle management comprising: at least one server, at least one said server having applications that generate I/O requests to store and access data in storage systems, at least one said server having a redirector that provides first virtual volumes to said applications, receives said I/O requests from said servers and transfers the I/O requests to said storage systems, said redirector having knowledge of which first virtual volumes are mapped to which physical volumes located in the storage systems; a primary storage system, the primary storage system being one of said storage systems and including a first disk controller, a cache memory, at least one said physical volume, and at least one second virtual volume, the primary storage system managing the mapping between the second virtual volumes and an associated said physical volumes; an external storage system, the external storage system being one of said storage systems and including a second disk controller, a second cache memory, at least one said physical volume; and at least one switch operatively connected between said at least one server and the primary storage system and the external storage system, wherein said first disk controller executes a data migration procedure that migrates data between said at least one physical volume at said primary storage system and said at least one physical volume at said external storage system based on an amount of accesses to said data in said at least one second virtual volume, and wherein when a request is received at the primary storage system from a server to access the data in the at least one physical volume at the external storage system, the server is added as an owner of the at least one physical volume at the external storage system, sent location information of the at least one physical volume at the external storage system, and allowed to access the at least one physical volume at the external storage system directly without passing through the primary storage system, and wherein the primary storage system further comprises a virtual volume management table that provides information for each virtual volume whether data for the virtual volume can be cached at the primary storage system and virtual volume owners.