Patent ID: 7882281

Claim:
A method for enabling virtualization in a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expander including a plurality of Phys, wherein the plurality of Phys comprise a set of one or more physical or virtual Phy corresponding to a single SAS address, the method comprising: creating a reference Phy for each SAS address of multiple SAS addresses to be virtualized in the expander, wherein the reference Phys enable access from the multiple SAS addresses to the expander through at least one Phy of said set of one or more physical or virtual Phy; adding entries for the multiple SAS addresses in a route table, each entry associating one of the multiple SAS addresses with at least one Phy of said set of one or more physical or virtual Phy, the route table including at least an entry associating the single SAS address to said set of one or more physical or virtual Phy; and routing a request with a destination address being one of the multiple SAS addresses to at least one Phy of said set of one or more physical or virtual Phy in accordance with the route table, said request received at said destination address via said set of one or more physical or virtual Phy.