APPARATUS, SYSTEM, AND METHOD FOR A DEVICE SHARED BETWEEN MULTIPLE INDEPENDENT HOSTS

摘要

The invention includes a proxy request receiver module and a proxy request command module. The proxy request receiver module executes on a designated command proxy host and receives a proxy request from a requesting host. The requesting host is one of two or more hosts. Each of the hosts executes an operating system independent from the other hosts and a shared device. One of the hosts is designated as the command proxy host. A system bus connects the hosts and shared device. The proxy request includes a control request to be executed by the shared device sufficient to configure the shared device for a data transfer between the requesting host and shared device independent of the command proxy host. The control request is free of data. The proxy request command module transmits the control request to the shared device.