STORAGE ROUTER AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING VIRTUAL LOCAL STORAGE
First Claim
1. A storage router for providing virtual local storage on storage devices to host devices, comprising:
- a first controller operable to interface with a first transport medium;
a second controller operable to interface with a second transport medium, wherein at least one of the first transport medium and the second transport medium is a serial transport medium; and
a supervisor unit coupled to the first and second controllers, the supervisor unit operable to;
provide virtual local storage on the storage devices to the host devices;
maintain a configuration that maps between the host devices and the storage devices, the configuration comprising a representation of the host devices and a representation of the storage devices; and
access the configuration to determine whether a host making a request is mapped to a requested storage device to control access while using native low level block protocol at the host, across the transport mediums and at the storage device.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A storage router (56) and storage network (50) provide virtual local storage on remote SCSI storage devices (60, 62, 64) to Fibre Channel devices. A plurality of Fibre Channel devices, such as workstations (58), are connected to a Fibre Channel transport medium (52), and a plurality of SCSI storage devices (60, 62, 64) are connected to a SCSI bus transport medium (54) The storage router (56) interfaces between the Fibre Channel transport medium (52) and the SCSI bus transport medium (54). The storage router (56) maps between the workstations (58) and the SCSI storage devices (60, 62, 64) and implements access controls for storage space on the SCSI storage devices (60, 62, 64). The storage router (56) then allows access from the workstations (58) to the SCSI storage devices (60, 62, 64) using native low level, block protocol in accordance with the mapping and the access controls.
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Citations
71 Claims
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1. A storage router for providing virtual local storage on storage devices to host devices, comprising:
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a first controller operable to interface with a first transport medium;
a second controller operable to interface with a second transport medium, wherein at least one of the first transport medium and the second transport medium is a serial transport medium; and
a supervisor unit coupled to the first and second controllers, the supervisor unit operable to;
provide virtual local storage on the storage devices to the host devices;
maintain a configuration that maps between the host devices and the storage devices, the configuration comprising a representation of the host devices and a representation of the storage devices; and
access the configuration to determine whether a host making a request is mapped to a requested storage device to control access while using native low level block protocol at the host, across the transport mediums and at the storage device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39)
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40. A method for providing virtual local storage on storage devices to host devices, comprising:
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interfacing at a first controller with a first transport medium;
interfacing at a second controller with a second transport medium, wherein at least one of the first transport medium and the second transport medium is a serial transport medium; and
providing virtual local storage on the storage devices to the host devices;
maintaining a configuration that maps between the host devices and the storage devices, the configuration comprising a representation of the host devices and a representation of the storage devices; and
accessing the configuration to determine whether a host making a request is mapped to a requested storage device to control access while using native low level block protocol at the host, across the transport mediums and at the storage device. - View Dependent Claims (41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71)
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Specification