Patent ID: 7617333
Filing Date: 2009-11-10
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A Fibre Channel (FC) controller shareable by a plurality of operating system domains (OSDs) within a load-store architecture, comprising: a FC port, configured to obtain a plurality of FC port identifiers for association with respective ones of the plurality of OSDs; a load-store bus interface, for coupling to a load-store bus, for being a target of at least one load-store transaction on said load-store bus from each of the plurality of OSDs, wherein each of the plurality of OSDs comprises a system load-store memory map that is associated with a respective processing complex, wherein the shared FC controller is mapped by each respective processing complex into a location within its associated system load-store memory map, wherein each respective processing complex executes at least one load-store instruction that generates said at least one load-store transaction targeted at the location of the shared FC controller within the associated system load-store memory map, wherein said at least one load-store transaction includes a command to perform an I/O operation with a remote FC device via said FC port; association logic, coupled to said load-store bus interface and said FC port, configured to populate a Source_Identifier (S_ID) field of at least one FC frame with one of said plurality of FC port identifiers associated with said respective one of the plurality of OSDs that initiated said command, wherein said FC port is configured to transmit said at least one FC frame on said FC port to said remote FC device; and a plurality of control/status register (CSR) banks, coupled to said load-store bus interface, wherein said load-store bus interface associates a different one of said plurality of CSR banks with each of the plurality of OSDs for being said target of said at least one load-store transaction including said command to perform said I/O operation.