Patent ID: 8874956

Claim:
A method of re-protecting data included in a storage zone of a distributed replicated data storage system, the method comprising: storing first data in a first storage zone at a first location of the distributed replicated data storage system storing a replica of the first data as replicated data in a second storage zone at a remote location as replicated data, wherein the remote location is different from and separate from the first location detecting an actual or impending failure or problem with a portion of the first data or a storage device included in the first storage zone including designating an at risk portion of the first data, a missing portion of the first data or an impaired portion of the first data as impacted data automatically transitioning to a replacement copy of the impacted data at the first storage zone in response to the detecting, the transitioning including creating a remote copy of the impacted data from the replicated data at the second storage zone at the remote location within a local area network transferring the remote copy from the second storage zone at the remote location to the first storage zone at the first location over the wide area network reconfiguring the first location so that the copy of the impacted data is accessed in place of the impacted data.