Patent ID: 7971006

Claim:
A method for handling status commands directed to a partitioned media library comprising: providing a storage router communicating with multiple remote hosts over a first transport media and with a media changer of a physical media library over a second transport media, wherein the storage router comprises a computer readable memory, a controller module and a processor configured to receive drive, changer and element addresses from the physical media library, partition the physical media library into smaller virtual media libraries by establishing logical drive, changer and element addresses for each virtual media library and maintaining a correspondence between the logical drive, changer and element addresses and the physical drive, changer and element addresses such that each virtual media library corresponds to a portion of the physical media library, assign the virtual media libraries to remote host applications, present each virtual media library to a remote host application to which it is assigned, and map as needed between logical drive, changer and element addresses and drive, changer and element addresses for the physical media library to forward commands from the remote host applications to the physical media library and return responses from the physical media library to the remote host applications; receiving a plurality of status commands from issuing host applications over the first transport media at the storage router directed to logical changer addresses of the virtual media libraries; for each status command received by the storage router, determining, by the controller module, whether the storage router should respond to the status command without passing the status command to the physical media changer, further comprising: if the status command is a MODE SENSE command, returning an element assignment address (“EAA”) page with logical element addresses for a virtual media library assigned to the issuing host; and if the status command is a LOG SENSE command, determining if the media changer of the physical media library is busy based on information cached in the computer readable memory; if the physical media changer is busy, returning cached LOG SENSE information from cache memory to the issuing host application; if the physical media changer is not busy, forwarding the LOG SENSE command to the physical media changer; returning a response to the forwarded LOG SENSE command to the issuing host application.