VIRTUAL CHANNEL REMAPPING
Granted: April 15, 2010
Application Number:
20100095025
Virtual channel enabled networking devices may map frames to specific virtual channels based upon frame characteristics (e.g. destination address, class of service). Devices and methods that provide a remapping of virtual channels are disclosed. In one embodiment, a network having virtual channel remapping may include: a first set of one or more switches that each support a first number of virtual channels, and a second set of one or more switches that each support a second number of…
WRITE CAPTURE FOR FIBRE CHANNEL FABRIC SNAPSHOT SERVICE
Granted: April 8, 2010
Application Number:
20100088481
The snapshot capability moving into the SAN fabric and being provided as a snapshot service. A well-known address is utilized to receive snapshot commands. Each switch in the fabric connected to a host contains a front end or service interface to receive the snapshot command. Each switch of the fabric connected to a storage device used in the snapshot process contains a write interceptor module which cooperates with hardware in the switch to capture any write operations which would occur…
PORT TRUNKING AT A FABRIC BOUNDARY
Granted: April 8, 2010
Application Number:
20100085981
F_PORTs of an edge switch are logically trunking with N_PORTs of a node device outside the fabric via a trunked group of communications links. The trunked N_PORTs of the node device and the trunked F_PORTs of the edge switch are configured to send and receive frames of a particular stream across the multiple trunked links for in-order communication with the other device. The node device outside the fabric initially negotiates with the edge switch using a sequence of fabric login requests…
APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PERFORMING CYCLIC REDUNDANCY CHECK (CRC) ON PARTIAL PROTOCOL DATA UNITS (PDUS)
Granted: March 25, 2010
Application Number:
20100077284
The present invention discloses an apparatus and method for performing cyclic redundancy check (CRC) on partial protocol data units (PDUs). The disclosed apparatus is designed to off-load the CRC calculation for transmit or receive from a host computer. According to the disclosed method, when generating CRC for partial PDUs, for each such PDUs a decision is made to determine whether a CRC action is required, i.e., if CRC should be calculated, checked or placed in the outgoing byte…
Priority Aware MAC Flow Control
Granted: February 25, 2010
Application Number:
20100046556
Solutions are provided that allow a network device to apply flow control on the MAC layer while taking into account the priority of the frame of traffic. This may be accomplished by generating a frame indicating that traffic flow should be paused, while utilizing a new opcode value, or alternatively by utilizing a new type/length value (possibly combined with a new opcode value). A receiving device may then examine the fields of the frame to determine whether it should it should use…
PROXYING MULTIPLE TARGETS AS A VIRTUAL TARGET USING IDENTIFIER RANGES
Granted: January 14, 2010
Application Number:
20100011114
A gateway includes a Fibre Channel (“FC”) port configured to couple to multiple FC targets, and an iSCSI port configured to couple to an iSCSI initiator. The iSCSI port is configured to facilitate communication between the FC targets and the iSCSI initiator, and proxy the multiple FC targets as a virtual iSCSI target. The iSCSI port is also configured to divide the Logical Unit Number (“LUN”) range into a plurality of subdivided LUN ranges, and associate the FC targets with the…
METHODS, DEVICES AND SYSTEMS WITH IMPROVED ZONE MERGE OPERATION BY CACHING PRIOR MERGE OPERATION RESULTS
Granted: December 24, 2009
Application Number:
20090316606
Methods, devices and systems for improved zone merge operations are disclosed. Two connected switches are arbitrated as an initiator and a receiver. The merge operation is initiated only by the initiator on an initiator/receiver inter-switch link. The initiator may initiate a merge request and the receiver may perform the computation of the difference between the old and the new zone. Either the whole configuration or only the differences are communicated between the switches. The merges…
METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR FACILITATING APPLICATION-ORIENTED QUALITY OF SERVICE IN A FIBRE CHANNEL NETWORK
Granted: December 24, 2009
Application Number:
20090316721
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates quality of service (QoS) in a Fibre Channel (FC) network. During operation, a host bus adaptor (HBA) allocates the bandwidth on an FC link between the HBA and an FC switch into a plurality of logical channels, wherein a respective logical channel can transport data frames of variable length. Furthermore, a respective logical channel is associated with a dedicated buffer on the HBA. The HBA associates data frames…
ADAPTIVE ASSET INFORMATION COLLECTION AND STORAGE
Granted: December 10, 2009
Application Number:
20090307346
A network management device which registers for any state change notifications from the devices in the network. The network management device updates its status and values of the devices associated with each state change notification by querying the device. In this manner the management device can make a more timely update for a particular device and need not keep querying devices that have not changed, thus eliminating many unnecessary transactions. In certain embodiments polling is…
ACCESS CONTROL LIST MANAGEMENT IN AN FCoE ENVIRONMENT
Granted: December 3, 2009
Application Number:
20090296726
A Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF) suspends a fabric session with a virtual machine (VM) in response to receipt of a deregister message from the virtual machine through an Ethernet bridge and transmits a deregister acceptance message to the VM. The Ethernet bridge detects the messages and updates its Access Control List (ACL) to remove the MAC address of the VM. While the fabric session is suspended, a virtual machine may migrate to another physical machine without terminating its…
Address Assignment in Fibre Channel Over Ethernet Environments
Granted: November 26, 2009
Application Number:
20090292813
A method of initializing a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) link between a Fibre Channel over Ethernet node (ENode) and Fibre Channel Forwarders (FCFs) in a network by discovering the presence of FCFs available to the ENode and other FCFs, assigning second MAC addresses to the ENode corresponding to each available FCF, and converting from a management and initialization process using the first MAC address to normal Fibre Channel operation using the second MAC addresses. The…
METHOD AND DEVICE FOR MANAGING CLUSTER MEMBERSHIP BY USE OF STORAGE AREA NETWORK FABRIC
Granted: November 12, 2009
Application Number:
20090282116
Managing cluster membership and providing and managing locks in the switches forming the interconnecting network. To manage the cluster membership, a zone is created, with indicated members existing in the zone and the zone being managed by the switches. The nodes communicate their membership events, such as alive messages, using an API to work with the switch to which they are attached. The desired membership algorithm is executed by the switches, preferably in a distributed manner.…
PORT EXPANDER FOR FIBRE CHANNEL FABRICS IN STORAGE AREA NETWORKS
Granted: November 5, 2009
Application Number:
20090274162
An port expander Fibre Channel switch presents F_ports to form a first Fibre Channel fabric and N_ports to a second Fibre Channel fabric to appear as node devices. The port expander may be used to connect a plurality of blade servers to a Fibre Channel fabric. Fabric events engendered by the insertion or removal of hot-pluggable devices are handled by the port expander and “event storms” on the Fibre Channel fabric are avoided. The port expander presents the blade servers to the FC…
DYNAMIC LINK DISTANCE CONFIGURATION FOR EXTENDED FABRIC
Granted: November 5, 2009
Application Number:
20090274169
A method to dynamically allocate credits for a particular port to port link based on measured link distance during the initial interswitch link configuration process. An apparatus implementing such method or a software upgrade to retrofit existing switches.
TEMPLATE-BASED DEVELOPMENT OF SERVERS
Granted: October 29, 2009
Application Number:
20090271432
A server instance, which is a collection of LUNs, containing an operating system, any applications and data storage. A processing element is the physical hardware. The combination is a server as normally understood. Templates are used to define server instances and server types to simplify deploying a server instance to a processing element. A graphical user interface provides the templates where the particular storage groups are identified and then server instances are created from…
PROXYING MULTIPLE INITIATORS AS A VIRTUAL INITIATOR USING IDENTIFIER RANGES
Granted: September 17, 2009
Application Number:
20090234959
A gateway includes a Fibre Channel (“FC”) port configured to couple to a FC target, and an internet small computer system interface (“iSCSI”) port configured to couple to iSCSI initiators. The iSCSI port is configured to facilitate communication between the iSCSI initiators and the FC target, and proxy the iSCSI initiators as a single virtual FC initiator. The iSCSI port is also configured to divide the FC Origination Exchange Identifier (“OX_ID”) range into a plurality of…
REGISTERED STATE CHANGE NOTIFICATION FOR A FIBRE CHANNEL NETWORK
Granted: September 3, 2009
Application Number:
20090219827
Disclosed herein are various aspects of a Fibre Channel (Fibre Channel) fabric having switches that employ Registered State Change Notifications (RSCNs) with enhanced payloads. Two types of RSCN message formats are provided, both including status information about the affected device(s). In one embodiment, a RSCN message format for inter-switch communication provides various information about the affected devices according to one of a plurality of predetermined formats. In another…
METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPRESSION OF DATA ON STORAGE UNITS USING DEVICES INSIDE A STORAGE AREA NETWORK FABRIC
Granted: July 23, 2009
Application Number:
20090185678
The capability to encrypt or compress the traffic over network links, thus improving the security of the link on the performance of the links, and the capability to encrypt/decrypt data stored on the storage devices without requiring specialized hosts or storage devices. In a first embodiment, traffic to be routed over a selected link needing encryption and/or compression is routed to hardware which performs the encryption and/or compression and returned for transmission over the link. A…
AUTOMATIC ADJUSTMENT OF LOGICAL CHANNELS IN A FIBRE CHANNEL NETWORK
Granted: June 18, 2009
Application Number:
20090154358
One embodiment of the present invention provides a system that facilitates automatic adjustment of logical channels in a Fibre Channel (FC) network. During operation, the system receives FC data frames. A respective data frame is associated with a logical channel. The bandwidth on an FC link can be allocated into a plurality of logical channels, and a respective logical channel is associated with a dedicated buffer and can transport a plurality of data flows with data frames of variable…
DETECTING NEED TO ACCESS METADATA DURING FILE OPERATIONS
Granted: June 11, 2009
Application Number:
20090150414
A method includes receiving a request, probing a first file server based on the request, and reading a stub file on the first file server based on a result of the probing. The stub file includes target information. The method further includes storing at least a portion of the target information.
