Suspension of an asynchronous remote copy pair system having a primary controller and a remote controller

A computer program product comprising a tangible computer useable storage medium having a computer readable program stored thereon, wherein the computer readable program when executed on a computer causes the computer to:

• send a primary write command to a primary controller to store write data to a primary storage;
• send an asynchronous remote copy (ARC) write command to an ARC controller for storing a duplicate copy of said write data to a remote storage;
• suppress release of said ARC command from said ARC controller, in response to determining that a delay between said step of sending said ARC write command to said ARC controller and the time when the remote storage is able to accept the data of a write command is more than a predetermined delay threshold;
• and
• store said write data at the primary storage in response to release of said ARC write command to said remote storage.

A method for storing data in an asynchronous remote copy (ARC) system, the method comprising:

• receiving a write request to write data to a primary storage;
• buffering said write data, while monitoring a time delay associated with a primary controller receiving said write request until a remote controller indicates that said remote controller will write a copy of said write data to a remote storage;
• and
• writing said write data to said primary storage, in response to a determination that said time delay is less than a predetermined delay threshold:
• writing a copy of said write data to said remote storage, in response to a determination that said time delay is less than said predetermined threshold;
• and
• suspending writing of said write data to said remote storage, in response to a determination that said time delay is greater than said predetermined threshold.