Patent ID: 7743180

Claim:
A method comprising: establishing a connection with an Input/Output (I/O) device on a connection path between a host system and a control unit over a network, wherein the connection path comprises a logical path on which a connection with the I/O device was established; issuing at least one command to the control unit to add at least one logical path between the host system and the control unit, other than the connection path, to a path group used by the host system to communicate with the I/O device, wherein the path group indicates multiple paths that extend through the network and that the host system uses to communicate with the I/O device via the control unit; issuing at least one other command to the control unit to add the connection path to the path group; and using one logical path in the path group, including the connection path or one logical path other than the connection path, to communicate with the I/O device, wherein when returning data from the I/O device to a request from the host, one path in the path group associated with the host and the I/O device is selected to return the data from the I/O device to the host system, wherein the host system receives attention to a lock request from the control unit on the connection path, wherein attention to the lock request is not returned by the control unit on logical paths in the path group other than the connection path.