A method and communications system for managing and supplying data in a communications environment, which may have a data-management device, several application servers that may communicate with the central data-management device via different communications protocols, and storage devices based on FC (Fiber Channel) and IP (Internet Protocol) technology. To provide the entire range of storage devices of different technologies to application servers that use different communications protocols, an application server may request data, which may be distributed among several storage devices of different technologies, using a specific communications protocol for an application to be carried out. The requested data are fetched out of at least one storage device, independently of the utilized communications protocol of the application server, and may be transmitted via the data-management device to the application server requesting the data, for further use, using its communications protocol.