Patent ID: 7023869

Claim:
A network adapter that may be used in a network data storage system that permits data communication among data exchanging devices and a data storage system input/output (I/O) controller, the controller residing in the data storage system, the data exchanging devices being external to the adapter, the adapter comprising: one or more interfaces that may be coupled to an electrical backplane of the system, the backplane being coupled to the controller and being configured to permit communication between the controller and the adapter when the one or more interfaces are coupled to the backplane; and the adapter being configured such that the adapter may provide at least one server behavior, wherein the at least one server behavior includes at least one of the following: making available to one or more of the data exchanging devices an application-level program resource; providing, in response to a block-oriented communication received by the adapter from the controller, a file-oriented communication to one or more of the data exchanging devices; and providing, in response to a file-oriented communication received by the adapter from the one or more of the data exchanging devices, a block-oriented communication to the controller.