Patent ID: 6629216
Filing Date: 2003-09-30
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
A fibre channel by-pass, comprising:a pair of input/output ports; a plurality of selector sections each one being coupled to a set of disk drives through fibre channel links, each one of the sections having a plurality of selectors and an input and an output serially coupled to the set of disk drives coupled thereto selectively in accordance with control signals fed to the plurality of selectors; a plurality of input selectors, each one having a pair of inputs and an output, such output being coupled to the input of a corresponding one of the plurality of selector sections; and a plurality of output selectors, each one having a pair of inputs and an output, a first one of the pair of inputs being coupled to the output of a corresponding one of the plurality of selector sections, each one of the outputs being coupled to a first one of the pair of inputs of the one of the selectors having the output thereof coupled to a first input of the one of the selectors having the output thereof coupled to such corresponding one of the selector sections; wherein the outputs of the selector sections except for a last one thereof being coupled to a second one of the pair of inputs of one of the input selectors; the pair inputs of a first one of the input selectors being coupled to a first one of the pair of input/output ports; and the pair inputs of the last one of the output selectors is coupled to a second one of the pair of input/output ports.