International Business Machines Corporation

David Dale McBride

Craig Anthony Klein

Robert George Emberty

Donald Eugene Denning

Edward Joseph Pawlowski

Gregory Allen Williams

Kenneth Glenn Day

Disclosed is a method and apparatus for emulating a fiber channel port. A controller is provided according to the invention that includes a fabric port and a virtual N port. The controller is adapted to buffer incoming data and convert an N port address provided with the data by a host computer to an instruction to the picker to couple the disk drive corresponding to the requested N port address to the virtual N port.

Method and apparatus for emulating a fiber channel port

Disclosed are a switching system and method for a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI). The SCSI has a plurality of ports coupled to devices having differing priorities including a highest priority (initiator) and lower priorities (targets). The present invention interconnects a plurality of the highest priority initiator devices to the lower priority target devices. A plurality of analog switches are each coupled to one of the initiator device ports and to the lower priority target device ports, preferably on a singular target bus, for selectively interconnecting the coupled initiator device to the lower priority target device ports. A controller is coupled to the initiator devices and to the plurality of analog switches, and is responsive to requests for connection from the initiator devices for arbitrating amongst the initiator devices to operate the analog switches to interconnect only one of the initiator device ports to the lower priority target device ports.

Switching multi-initiator SCSI devices to a singular target bus

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Tucson, AZ, United States of America

David Dale McBride