Patent ID: 7512663

Claim:
A method of transmitting storage networking data from a remote storage networking device to a storage networking device, comprising: transmitting, within an iSCSI protocol data unit that indicates that a storage networking device is ready to receive data, a first locational data encoded within a Target Transfer Tag of the iSCSI protocol data unit, from the storage networking device to a remote storage networking device; receiving at the storage networking device a second locational data and a storage networking data from a remote storage networking device, wherein the second locational data is generated by the remote storage networking device based at least in part on the first locational data, and wherein the storage networking data includes at least one command for at least partially controlling a device attached to a storage network and is transmitted using the iSCSI protocol; generating, based at least in part on the second locational data, a location in a buffer memory of the storage networking device, wherein the buffer memory is configured to at least temporarily store at least part of the storage networking data at a location within the buffer memory that is based at least in part on the locational data and determined using a data pointer table comprising information for calculating a pointer to a location within the buffer memory, wherein the locational data encoded in the Target Transfer Tag comprises an index into the data pointer table, such that the storage networking device provides direct access to the buffer memory; storing the storage networking data at the generated location in the buffer memory; and wherein the first locational data is further configured to identify a connection in a connection lookup table defining a plurality of connections between the storage networking device and one or more remote storage networking devices.