Patent ID: 7734743

Claim:
In an InfiniBand (IB) network environment, a method for retrieving a boot image for an IB host device comprising: receiving a set of boot arguments including a command keyword; determining whether the command keyword is a first keyword, wherein the first keyword triggers utilization of a first support package that enables communication with a first boot server via a SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) protocol; and when the command keyword is the first keyword, automatically forwarding first-type boot arguments to the first support package, which is configured to respond to receipt of the first-type boot arguments by dynamically initiating access to a first storage device to retrieve the boot image from the first storage device utilizing the SCSI protocol; wherein the first keyword is srp, which specifies the SCSI RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) Protocol --SRP-- support package, which utilizes SCSI communication methods to access the first boot server across an IB network.