Patent ID: 8621096

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: circuitry capable of generating, at least in part, at least one packet that includes an indication that the at least one packet comprises a control protocol packet, the at least one packet also including, at least in part, at least one of: an identification, at least in part, of at least one characteristic of at least one storage device associated, at least in part, with at least one network server, the identification being generated, at least in part, in response, at least in part, to a request for the identification, the identification to be contained, at least in part, in one or more responses to the request, and the request for the identification; the indication indicating, at least in part, that the at least one packet comprises, at least in part: an application-layer control protocol packet, the application-layer control protocol packet also indicating, at least in part, at least one value associating, at least in part, the request with the identification, the at least one value containing one or more sequence numbers that are contained in both the request and the one or more responses, the one or more sequence numbers identifying the request; wherein: the application-layer control protocol packet also indicates, at least in part: at least one target address identifying, at least in part, the at least one network server, at least one storage address identifying, at least in part, the at least one storage device, and a message type identifying, at least in part, whether the application-layer control protocol packet is associated, at least in part, with one or more of a broadcast address, a storage interface address, and a server address.