Patent ID: 8549240

Claim:
A method of recovering data from a data writing process in a storage area network (SAN), the method comprising: at a SAN switch, providing a first data writing mechanism for a first host to write first SAN data to a storage device; and at the SAN switch, setting up a first data recovery mechanism that is associated with the first data writing mechanism whereby the first data recovery mechanism is set up to receive a query from an appliance, in response to the first SAN data being unsuccessfully mirrored to the appliance during data tapping, to read and recover the first SAN data and in response to such query provide the first SAN data to the appliance; wherein setting up the first data recovery mechanism includes: setting up a first appliance virtual target (AVT) for reading the first SAN data by the appliance from the storage device, wherein the first AVT is set up in the SAN switch, which receives the first SAN data; and registering the first AVT with a name server database.