Gregory S Walter

US Patent:

7669000, Feb 23, 2010

Filed:

Oct 23, 2007

Appl. No.:

11/877116

Inventors:

Prateek Sharma - San Jose CA, US
Tony Sonthe Nguyen - San Jose CA, US
Gregory S. Walter - San Francisco CA, US
Surya P. Varanasi - Dublin CA, US

Assignee:

Brocade Communication Systems, Inc. - San Jose CA

International Classification:

G06F 13/36

US Classification:

710310, 710 39, 709250

Abstract:

A multi-host host bus adapter (HBA) can be connected to multiple host devices to allow the multiple host devices to communicate on a SAN fabric. More specifically, the multi-host HBA provides an interface for multiple SAN hosts without necessitating an HBA on each host, eliminating the need for an on-board HBA on each SAN host. The multi-host HBA interfaces to memory in each SAN host to which it is connected using PCI-Express (or a similar protocol), and communicates with other devices on the SAN fabric using Fibre Channel ports. The multi-host HBA communicates by receiving a command from a connected host, forwarding the command to a processor in the multi-host HBA, and sending the command to a device on a SAN. When the multi-host HBA receives a response from the device on the SAN, the multi-host HBA associates the response with the process and sends the response to the host.