Fine granularity exchange level load balancing may be performed in a device in a storage area network in order to ensure that processors in a multi-core environment are not overloaded. This may be accomplished by assigning input/outputs relating to a particular exchange to a specific processor, and maintaining that association so that subsequent related input/outputs are handled by the same processor. In this process, the system may first determine if a received IO is new. If so, then it may assign the IO to a particular data path processor and create a context corresponding to the IO and the processor, as well as to the type of the non-command frame. Subsequently, an event may be received corresponding to the IO, which may then be forwarded to the processor assigned to the IO.