Patent ID: 7194653

Claim:
A method of transferring data between a host and a device, the method comprising: connecting a first server to the host across a network and to the device across a first channel fabric; connecting a second server to the host across the network and to the device across a second channel fabric; communicatively coupling the first server with the second server; establishing multiple instances of a router on each server; designating the at least one of the routers on the first server as running and at least one of the corresponding routers on the second server as ghost; determining first connectivity information regarding connectivity across the first channel fabric between the device and the running router; receiving second connectivity information describing connectivity across the second channel fabric between the device and the ghost router; comparing at both the first and second server the first and second connectivity information; and resigning the running router operating on the first server in favor of the ghost router operating on the second server when the comparison indicates that the ghost router has better connectivity, wherein resigning includes designating the router operating on the second server as running and the router operating on the first server as ghost.