Patent ID: 8805918

Claim:
A method of managing exchanges in a network device of a storage area network, the network device having a plurality of ports, comprising: (a) at least one of receiving one or more frames from an initiator in a first exchange and sending one or more frames to the initiator in the first exchange, the first exchange being initiated by the initiator and being between the initiator and the network device, at least one of the frames pertaining to access of a virtual storage location of a virtual storage unit representing one or more physical storage locations on one or more physical storage units of the storage area network; (b) at least one of sending one or more frames from the network device to a target in a second exchange and receiving one or more frames from the target in the second exchange, the second exchange being between the network device and the target and being initiated in response to the first exchange, the target being one of the physical storage units; (c) updating exchange information for the first exchange and the second exchange; and (d) linking the exchange information for the first exchange to the exchange information for the second exchange; wherein the exchange information for the first exchange and the second exchange indicates whether the corresponding exchange is between the initiator and the network device or between the network device and the target; wherein (a), (b), (c), and (d) are performed by a processor dedicated to a single one of the plurality of ports of the network device.