The present invention provides a method for hierarchical state based migration of data. The method includes determining one or more constraints and/or global parameters for migration of data from a first storage location to a second storage location, allocating copy and updating resources to copy data from the first storage location to the second storage location based on at least one constraints and/or global parameter, altering at least one of the constraints based on one or more states of the data in the migration, and reallocating at least one of the copy and/or updating resources during the migration based on the altering step. The present invention also provides for the hierarchical migration of data by assigning tasks and/or responsibilities for the migration to various components of a hierarchical system.