Patent ID: 7721079

Claim:
A system for automatically configuring and communicating to a plurality of I/O devices, comprising: the plurality of I/O devices operatively coupled to each other, wherein each of the I/O devices is operatively coupled to a neighboring device through a direct physical connection that includes a bus, absent a rack that houses the plurality of I/O devices, the bus employs a first protocol for I/O device configuration commands and a second protocol for standard network communications, wherein the plurality of I/O devices employ the first protocol for determining physical locations of the I/O devices with respect to one another and automatically assigns node addresses to each of the plurality of I/O devices in which each assigned node address corresponds to the physical location of each of the respective I/O devices; and an interface component for communicating with the plurality of I/O devices via the second protocol using the standard network communications, wherein the interface component employs the first protocol to sequentially enable at least one of the plurality of I/O devices to receive the standard network communications, the interface component enables at least one other I/O device of the plurality of I/O devices to form an I/O group by employing the first protocol.