To provide a solution enabling storage administrators to recognize and manage both virtual and physical aspects of storage system hierarchy.

A storage management server 130 holds information on both the physical topology of a device 100 and virtualized system configuration. In addition, the storage management server holds state information indicating whether each component is shown virtually or physically. The server creates latest topology data to be drawn from its physical topology and virtualized configuration according to the above state that indicates which topology must be shown in each portion of the system. Thereafter, the server draws created topology on the screen. A user can switch a display between a physical display and a virtual display, which prompts the server to redraw the state of each portion to thereby enable the user to switch to the other.

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