Patent ID: 7254329

Claim:
A method for processing multiple commands to a streaming target device through a SCSI router in a Fibre Channel network having a plurality of Fibre Channel hosts, comprising the steps of, in the SCSI router: creating a FIFO queue; receiving a first command from one of the plurality of Fibre Channel hosts and forwarding the first command to the streaming target device; processing a subsequent command from one of either said one of the plurality of Fibre Channel hosts or from one of other ones of the plurality of Fibre Channel hosts, comprising: (a) receiving the subsequent command in the SCSI router; (b) determining whether the streaming target device has completed execution of the first command; (c) if the streaming target device has completed execution of the first command, forwarding the subsequent command to the streaming target device; (d) if the streaming target device has not completed executing the first command, placing the subsequent command in the FIFO queue; and (e) forwarding the subsequent command from the FIFO queue to the streaming target device upon completion of the first command by the streaming target device; and repeating the step of processing the subsequent command from one of either said one of the plurality of Fibre Channel hosts or said one of other ones of the plurality of the second Fibre Channel hosts for at least one additional subsequent command, wherein the subsequent command is the first command and the at least one additional subsequent command is the subsequent command.