Patent ID: 7519696

Claim:
In a computer system including a host computer and at least one computer system resource accessible to at least one application program executing on the host computer, wherein the host computer comprises an operating system and the operating system uses at least one identifier to enable access by the host computer to the at least one computer system resource, the at least one identifier identifying the at least one computer system resource, a method of reconfiguring the computer system, the method comprising a step of: A) dynamically reconfiguring the computer system, without reinitializing the host computer or the at least one application program, in response to a change in a configuration of the computer system that changes the at least one identifier which is used by the operating system to enable access by the host computer to the at least one computer system resource and which is at least partially descriptive of a physical path of the computer system used by the host computer to access the at least one computer system resource, to alter a manner in which the at least one application program accesses the at least one computer system resource, wherein: the at least one computer system resource includes a storage system including a plurality of storage devices accessible by the host computer; the host computer includes an application layer owning a plurality of logical objects; the computer system further includes a mapping entity that includes at least one mapping layer mapping the plurality of logical objects from the application layer to a physical layer relating to the plurality of storage devices; and the step (A) includes a step of dynamically updating the at least one mapping layer to reflect the change in the configuration of the computer system without reinitializing the mapping entity.