Patent ID: 8539096

Claim:
An automated method of configuring routing attributes of ports within a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) network domain, comprising: performing a recursive configuration process managed by a SAS control element, comprising: selecting a port of a first SAS device; determining, via SMP communications between the selected port and a directly coupled port of a second device, whether the second device is a SAS expander or an end device; responsive to determining that the second device is an end device, configuring routing attributes of the selected port for direct routing; responsive to determining that the second device is a SAS expander, if the first SAS device is an end device, configuring routing attributes of the directly coupled port for direct routing, and if the first SAS device is a SAS expander, configuring routing attributes of the directly coupled port for subtractive routing, and configuring routing attributes of the selected port for table routing; and recursively performing the configuration process upon ports of the second device, wherein the second device stands in for the first SAS device when the configuration process is recursively performed.