Patent ID: 7761540

Claim:
A method for performing a boot operation at an initiator port in a Serial Attached SCSI network, comprising: issuing a boot discovery command at the initiator to identify addresses of boot targets associated with the initiator, wherein the step of issuing the boot discovery command comprises: issuing a command to identify an expander responsible for identifying boot targets for initiators; and issuing a command to the identified expander to identify the boot addresses associated with the initiator; receiving the boot discovery command at an expander associated with the initiator; determining, at an expander associated with the initiator, if the address of the initiator is associated with a boot target; if it is determined at the expander associated with the initiator that the initiator is associated with the boot target, providing the address of each associated boot target to the initiator; and attempting to boot from each of the boot targets, with the boot code included at the address of each of the boot targets, until the initiator has successfully booted.