Patent ID: 7941602

Claim:
A method for providing management and control for a storage system, comprising: providing a first virtual storage representation, in a secondary virtualization layer within the storage system, the first virtual storage representation comprising a first set of data stored in a first physical disk set; implementing a first virtual disk, in a primary virtualization layer within the storage system, using the first virtual storage representation; providing a second virtual storage representation in the secondary virtualization layer, the second virtual storage representation comprising a second set of data stored in a second physical disk set, the first or the second physical disk set including a plurality of physical disks; implementing a second virtual disk, in the primary virtualization layer, using the second virtual storage representation; causing, by a controller in the storage system, the first and second virtual disks to mirror each other, the first and second virtual disks thereby forming a mirrored pair; causing the first virtual disk to receive all input and output requests directed to the mirrored pair from hosts external to the storage system; performing a swap, after which the second virtual storage representation implements the first virtual disk; and servicing, by the first virtual disk, a plurality of input and output requests, from hosts external to the storage system, both before and after performing the swap.