Patent ID: 6725393
Filing Date: 2004-04-20
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A host bus adapter for interconnecting a computer system to a storage area network comprising:hardware for transmission of frames; hardware for reception of frames; memory for storage of frames; a processor for processing frames, the processor coupled to the hardware for transmission of frames, the hardware for reception of frames, and the memory for storage of frames; wherein the processor is capable of inspecting frames for encapsulated write requests and, if encapsulated write request frames are found, de-encapsulating the write request and forwarding the write request through the hardware for transmission of frames to a target node of the write request; wherein the host bus adapter is capable of maintaining a mirrored dataset on at least two target nodes; and wherein the host bus adapter is capable of determining that it has no direct path to one of the at least two target nodes, and, when no direct path exists, is capable of requesting that another node perform a surrogate write to the one of the at least two target nodes.