Patent ID: 8239477

Claim:
A method of modifying a data tapping process in a storage area network (SAN), the method comprising: at a network device of the SAN, providing a data tapping mechanism for an appliance to receive SAN data that is being sent from a host to a storage device, wherein the appliance and the storage device are both physical devices and providing the data tapping mechanism includes creating a control virtual target (CVT) for receiving requests from the appliance to modify the tapping mechanism for the appliance, a data virtual target (DVT) for intercepting data sent from the host to the storage device, one or more virtual initiators (VIs) for mirroring the intercepted data to both the storage device and the appliance, wherein the DVT has an identifier for use by the host for writing and reading data with respect to the DVT, which such data are then handled by the one or more VIs so as to write and read such data with respect to the storage device or appliance or both; the network device receiving a request at the CVT to modify operation of the data tapping mechanism; and the network device modifying the data tapping mechanism based on the request.