System and method for providing a proxy FARP for legacy storage devices
US6151331A · kind A · utility
Assignee
Inventor
Key dates
| Filing date | Sep 23, 1998 |
| Grant date | Nov 21, 2000 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Sep 23, 2018 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L61/10
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
In a fiber channel network, a method and system for discovering the location of a storage device that does not support FARP using a FARP broadcast using a storage router as a proxy. The storage device can be connected to the storage router via an arbitrated loop or a local SCSI interface. The storage router can perform a discovery to determine the node names of each storage device connected to it and save the discovered storage device node names to a look-up table. The storage router then sends a FARP request to each storage device on the look-up table. For each storage device that responds, flagging the corresponding node name for that storage device in the look-up table as FARP compatible, and for each storage device that does not respond, flagging the corresponding node name as not being FARP compatible. When a FARP broadcast directed to any of the storage devices is received at the storage router, the router determines if the storage device is FARP compatible by accessing the look-up table and if the storage device is not FARP compatible, sends a reply to the FARP broadcast that contains the physical address of the storage device.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.