Patent ID: 7930583

Claim:
A method comprising: creating a storage area network (SAN) topology data structure using data comprising SAN device connectivity information, and SAN device status information, wherein the data is gathered via calls to a host bus adapter (HBA); loading a module into a multipath device driver, wherein the module comprises device-specific procedures augmenting an existing set of general procedures, and the module is specific to one of a plurality of devices within a SAN topology; receiving, at the HBA, a message indicating occurrence of an event related to a change in the SAN topology; obtaining, from the HBA, information from the received message, wherein the information describes a change in a SAN device; updating the SAN topology data structure according to the information from the received message; using information in the updated SAN topology data structure to identify a suspect path for use by the multipath device driver; and selecting, using the updated SAN topology data structure, a path different from the suspect path, wherein the selecting is based in part on the module loaded into the multipath device driver.