Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.

Polycom, Inc.

Kha Sin Teow

Paul Ramsay

Jieming Zhu

David C Banks

Kumar Malavalli

Vince Guan

In a system comprising a first fabric and a plurality of devices coupled to the fabric by Fiber Channel connections, the devices are logically grouped to form configurations and zones. A configuration includes at least one zone, and each zone includes at least one device as a member of the zone. Communications between the devices is restricted according to the configuration currently in effect. For example, one device may be permitted to communicate with another device only if they are members of a common zone.

Node device cooperating with switch which implements zones in a fibre channel system

In a system comprising a first fabric and a plurality of devices coupled to the fabric by Fibre Channel connections, the devices are logically grouped to form configurations and zones. A configuration includes at least one zone, and each zone includes at least one device as a member of the zone. Communications between the devices is restricted according to the configuration currently in effect. For example, one device may be permitted to communicate with another device only if they are members of a common zone.

Method and system for creating and implementing zones within a fibre channel system

In a system comprising a first fabric and a plurality of devices coupled to the fabric by fiber channel connections, the devices are logically grouped to form configurations and zones. A configuration includes at least one zone, and each zone includes at least one device as a member of the zone. Communications between the devices is restricted according to the configuration currently in effect. For example, one device may be permitted to communicate with another device only if they are members of a common zone.

Method and system for creating and implementing zones in hardware within a fiber channel system

A method and system for a management station managing a plurality of routing devices within a fabric. In one embodiment, this management of routing devices comprising the fabric occurs in the Storage Area Network environment. Use is made of a protocol which already exists in a Storage Area Network environment, such as the Fibre Channel Protocol for SCSI (&ldquo;FCP&rdquo;, for managing routing devices within a fabric. Each routing device comprising the fabric is assigned a logical unit number, which, in one embodiment, is based on the domain identifiers of each routing device. Further, the routing device to which the management station is physically is also labeled as LUN , and serves as the logical fabric SCSI Enclosure Services controller unit. The fabric interacts with the management station as though the fabric were a logical fabric SCSI Enclosure Services device coupled to a plurality of logical fabric SCSI Enclosure Services units. The management station is thus able to obtain information about, and manage, any of the routing devices comprising the fabric.

SCSI enclosure services

In a system comprising a first fabric and a plurality of devices coupled to the fabric by fibre channel connections, the devices are logically grouped to form configurations and zones. A configuration includes at least one zone, and each zone includes at least one device as a member of the zone. Communications between the devices is restricted according to the configuration currently in effect. For example, one device may be permitted to communicate with another device only if they are members of a common zone.

A probing device for resolving the limitations of fabric registration by providing a fabric with a system and method for concurrently probing multiple end-devices, which would otherwise be unusable to register with the fabric, to registration information. In addition, by relying upon the probing device, a fabric can avoid requiring any end-devices from having to initiate registration with the fabric.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Kha Sin Teow