NPIV at storage devices

1. A storage device, comprising:

multiple physical ports that receive input/outputs (I/Os) from a host computer, each of the multiple physical ports presents plural virtual ports using N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) at the storage device such that each of the multiple physical ports includes multiple NPIV addresses, wherein the I/Os are prioritized using the NPIV at the storage device, independent of the host computer using NPIV, based on a current workload of the storage device, and wherein a first transformation function classifies the I/Os into multiple real-time request queues using the multiple addresses, and a second transformation function assigns a quantum for a policy based scheduler to each queue.

2. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the storage device is a disk array, and the NPIV is used to present multiple different targets on the disk array and provide target-side prioritization to execute the I/Os.

3. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the NPIV provides for quality of service (QoS) at the storage device.

4. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein each of the physical ports is divided into plural logical ports, and each of the plural logical ports are assigned a different priority for incoming I/Os.

5. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the storage device uses multiple virtual target node ports to present clients with an appearance of plural initiator-target (I_T) nexus with multiple lanes of prioritization for the I/Os.

6. The storage device of claim 1 , wherein the NPIV supports World Wide Name (WWN)-based zoning.

7. A method, comprising:

receiving input/outputs (I/Os) from hosts at one physical port on a storage device;

using N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) at the storage device to present the one physical port as having multiple virtual target node ports with multiple NPIV addresses;

prioritizing the I/Os using the NPIV at the storage device, independently of whether the hosts use NPIV, based on a current workload of the storage device, with a first transformation function classifying the I/Os into multiple real-time request queues using the multiple addresses, and a second transformation function assigning a quantum for a policy based scheduler to each queue; and

executing the I/Os with a target-side priority assigned by the storage device.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising, grouping, by the storage device, hosts together that require a same priority.

9. The method of claim 7 further comprising, scheduling, by the storage device, the I/Os to execute with the target-side priority assigned by the storage device and according to a quality of service (QoS) indicated by the storage device.

10. The method of claim 7 further comprising, globally managing I/O priority using NPIV at the storage device independently of whether host side applications, operating systems, and hypervisors use NPIV.

11. The method of claim 7 further comprising, using World Wide Name (WWN)-based zoning to create multiple logical paths for the multiple virtual target node ports.

12. A storage system, comprising:

a storage device including multiple physical ports to receive input/outputs (I/Os) from a host computer, each of the multiple physical ports presents plural virtual ports using N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) at the storage device such that each of the multiple physical ports includes multiple NPIV addresses;

a classifier to classify the I/Os into multiple real-time request queues using the multiple addresses; and

a policy based scheduler to assign a quantum value to each queue,

wherein the I/Os are prioritized using the NPIV at the storage device, independent of the host computer using NPIV, based on a current workload of the storage device.

13. The storage system of claim 12 wherein the I/Os are prioritized using the NPIV at the storage device based on the current workload of the storage device and a quality of service (QoS) indicated by the storage device.

14. The storage system of claim 13 wherein the I/Os are classified according to one of plural different priorities and transmitted to one of plural separate queues for each active QoS class.

15. The storage system of claim 14 wherein the storage device applies the priority and QoS information to the policy based scheduler.

16. The storage system of claim 12 wherein I/Os having a same priority are grouped together.

17. The storage system of claim 12 wherein World Wide Name (WWN)-based zoning is used to create multiple logical paths for the plural virtual ports, and the quantum value is derived from a World Wide Node Name (WWNN) or World Wide Port Name (WWPN).