Patent ID: 7493416

Claim:
A Fibre Channel (FC) controller shareable by a plurality of operating system domains (OSDs) within a load-store architecture, comprising: a programming interface, located within a system load-store memory map of each of the plurality of OSDs for requesting the controller to perform I/O operations with remote FC devices, said programming interface comprising a distinct control/status register (CSR) bank for each of the plurality of OSDs, wherein the plurality of OSDs execute load-store instructions addressed to said programming interface to request said I/O operations, wherein the controller receives corresponding load-store transactions in response to execution of said load-store instructions; selection logic, coupled to said CSR banks, configured to select as a target of each of said load-store transactions said distinct CSR bank for the one of the plurality of OSDs that executed said corresponding load-store instruction; and a FC port, coupled to said programming interface, configured to obtain a distinct FC port identifier for each of the plurality of OSDs, and to transceive FC frames with said remote FC devices using said distinct FC port identifier for each of the plurality of OSDs in response to said I/O operation requests, wherein said FC port obtains said distinct FC port identifier for each of the plurality of OSDs by logging into a FC fabric using a unique FC Port Name associated with the OSD.