Patent ID: 7953905

Claim:
A method of identifying I/O paths in a storage area network (SAN) comprising: identifying a fabric of connections between a set of interconnected manageable SAN entities, the fabric of connections comprising a first network segment and a second network segment, the first network segment comprising a logical grouping of manageable SAN entities and operating according to a first transport mechanism, the second network segment comprising a logical grouping of manageable SAN entities and operating according to a second transport mechanism, the first transport mechanism different than the second transport mechanism, wherein (i) at least one of the manageable SAN entities in the first network segment and (ii) at least one of the manageable SAN entities in the second network segment each connects to an intersegment connection device, the intersegment connection device performing intersegment communications between the respective manageable SAN entities within the first network segment and the second network segment; identifying at least one intersegment path between the first network segment and the second network segment, wherein each manageable SAN entity from the respective first and second network segments, that is connected to the intersegment connection device, comprises an ingress and egress point for its corresponding network segment; and mapping a SAN message along the identified intersegment path, wherein mapping the SAN message includes discovering respective manageable SAN entities in the first network segment and the second network segment wherein discovering manageable SAN entities include: traversing through the first network segment and the second network segment via the intersegment connection device; identifying manageable SAN entities found during the traversal; determining a respective transport mechanism used by each of the identified manageable SAN entities; computing groups of discovered manageable SAN entities employing particular transport mechanisms; and entering the computed groups as respective network segments in a model depicting a SAN environment, the SAN environment modeled via a SAN management application, the SAN management application operable for concurrently monitoring and accessing a first manageable SAN entity in the first network segment and a second manageable SAN entity in the second network segment; wherein discovering manageable SAN entities occurs upon detecting a configuration change occurring within the SAN; wherein monitoring and accessing the first manageable SAN entity in the first network segment and a second manageable SAN entity in the second network segment includes: via the SAN management application: instantiating a third manageable SAN entity in the first network segment; establishing a connection between the third manageable SAN entity and the first manageable SAN entity in the first network segment; and executing an upgrade to the second manageable SAN entity in the second network segment.