Patent ID: 7552056

Claim:
A method of providing data storage resources controlled by a service provider to a customer of the service provider, comprising: allocating a data storage resource to the customer for connection to and use by equipment controlled by the customer; storing a registration request in a storage area on the allocated data storage resource, the registration request being generated by the customer on the equipment and comprising an equipment identifier and a customer account identifier; detecting the registration request in the storage area; matching the equipment identifier in the registration request to a stored equipment identifier stored in a database table maintained by the service provider, the stored equipment identifier being associated with an identifier of the data storage resource; and storing the customer account identifier with the equipment identifier and the data storage resource identifier in the database table to associate a customer account corresponding to the customer account identifier with the stored equipment identifier and the data storage resource identifier to track usage of the allocated data storage resource by the customer for storage resource management and billing.