Patent ID: 8448013

Claim:
A method to handle a failure condition in a storage controller, the storage controller enabling one or more host devices to access data in one or more storage devices, the method comprising: detecting a failure condition in the storage controller; identifying a specific host-device/storage-device relationship associated with the failure condition; determining a failure ID associated with the failure condition; locating, in a table using the failure ID, an entry identifying a set of data structures and traces to collect and a recovery process to execute on the storage controller in response to the failure condition; collecting the set of data structures and traces identified in the entry for the specific host-device/storage-device relationship; executing the recovery process on the storage controller for the specific host-device/storage-device relationship; and while collecting the set of data structures and traces and executing the recovery process, suspending I/O between the specific host device and storage device associated with the failure condition, while maintaining, through the storage controller, I/O between host devices and storage devices not associated with the failure condition.