Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.

Qlogic Corporation

Eric R Griffith

David C Banks

James Kunz

Jieming Zhu

Jerald K Alston

Vincent W Guan

Ding Long Wu

Oscar J Grijalva

Jeffery Stai

James A Kunz

A storage area network ('SAN') and a system is provided. The SAN includes, a host bus adapter operationally coupled with a credit extender, wherein the credit extender receives frames from a Fibre Channel network and sends the received frames to the HBA based on buffer space available in the HBA. The HBA notifies other Fibre Channel ports of buffer space available in the credit extender. The HBA sends a signal to the credit extender notifying the credit extender of available buffer space in the HBA. The HBA includes a management port for interfacing the HBA with the credit extender.

Method and system for using an in-line credit extender with a host bus adapter

A system and method for sending frames between a public device and a private device comprise a phantom device mapping, an address translation, a frame payload translation, and a CRC regeneration. The system and method assign a phantom AL_PA for the public device and establishes a phantom device mapping between the phantom AL_PA and the public device's Port_ID. With the phantom device mapping, the present invention directs all communication between the public device and the private loop device as if the communication were between a phantom device and the private device. Specifically, the system and method comprise a public-to-private address translation in one direction and a private-to-public address translation in the other direction. During the public-to-private address translation process, the source address of the frame is converted to a phantom AL_PA. The public-to-private address translation uses a Port_ID to phantom AL_PA mapping table and finds an entry where the Port_ID matches the source address. The public-to-private address translation replaces the source address of the frame with the phantom AL_PA of the matched entry, and the destination address with the AL_PA only of the destination device. The private-to-public address translation replaces the destination address of the frame with the Port_ID of the matched entry, and the source address with the fabric assigned address of the private device.

System and method for sending and receiving frames between a public device and a private device

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Yorba Linda, CA, United States of America

Eric R Griffith