Patent ID: 8489940

Claim:
A method operable in a virtualized storage system utilizing Fibre Channel (FC) communications, the storage system comprising a plurality of physical FC target devices, the method comprising: receiving a read or write command over an FC communication medium from an attached host system, wherein the read or write command is directed to a virtual FC target, the virtual FC target comprising multiple physical FC target devices; allocating a range of sequential exchange identifier (X_ID) values responsive to receipt of the read or write command; issuing multiple physical I/O operations, each physical I/O operation directed to a corresponding one of the multiple physical FC target devices, wherein each of the multiple physical I/O operations is associated with a corresponding X_ID value of the range of sequential X_ID values; selecting a primary X_ID (RX_ID) value based on the X_ID value associated with a first completed physical I/O operation of the multiple physical I/O operations; transmitting a response to the host system indicating success or failure of the read or write command based on the completion of the multiple physical I/O operations, wherein the response transmitted to host system utilizes the RX_ID; and releasing the allocated range of sequential X_ID values responsive to transmitting the response to the host system, wherein the step of issuing multiple physical I/O operations comprises issuing multiple physical I/O operations to be performed substantially in parallel by the multiple physical FC target devices.