Cisco Technology, Inc.

Sunil John Varghese

Harsha Bharadwaj

Venu Gopal Tummala

Pramod Menon

Ankan Ghosh

Ganesan Rajagopal

Joy J Chatterjee

Mariappan Balraj

Paresh Gupta

Vv Krishna Rao Gubbala

A method comprises: at a management entity configured to monitor a transceiver system having a transceiver to receive a signal that conveys data frames transmitted by a peer transceiver over a connection: collecting time series values for operating parameters of the transceiver associated with received data frames, including (i) a receive power, and (ii) counts of different media access control (MAC) layer frame errors that respectively indicate degradation levels for system performance ranked from highest to lowest; using the time series values, performing correlations of the receive power against the counts of the different MAC layer frame errors according to a correlation hierarchy that indicates which of the correlations correspond to which of the degradation levels, to produce correlation results; and responsive to the correlation results, determining a degraded component of the transceiver system.

Correlating transceiver parameters for insight into transceiver health

A method includes receiving a FLOGI message sent by a device seeking to log on to a network, wherein the device is in a same zone as reachable devices already logged into the network; in response to the FLOGI message, sending to the device a FC_ID, receiving from the device a query, including the FC_ID, for a list of devices with which the device can communicate, in response to the query, sending to the device an empty list of reachable devices with which the device can communicate within the same zone; after sending the empty list, programming, at least, an access control list (ACL) including information about the device; and after the ACL is programmed, triggering a RSCN message to be sent to the device to cause the device to, for the first time, obtain information about the reachable devices.

Non-disruptive login throttling in fibre channel networks

An initiator emulator is implemented on a control plane of a switch fabric connected to target ports of a storage array having storage configured with logical partitions. After an initiator port of a server logs into the switch fabric and is blocked from discovering the target ports, the initiator emulator, acting as proxy for the initiator port, discovers information that indicates logical partition masking enforced at the target ports for the initiator port. The initiator emulator determines allowed (initiator (I), target (T)) (I, T) port combinations that should be allowed access via the switch fabric based on the information from the discovery. The initiator emulator configures the switch fabric with one or more zones based on the allowed (I, T) port combinations. The initiator emulator then sends to the initiator port an indication of a zone change to the switch fabric.

Complete autozoning in fibre channel SANs

Techniques are provided for bifurcating database information that might otherwise be replicated on each switch in a switched fabric of a Storage Area Network (SAN). The database is divided into a control plane database that comprises mostly switch specific data and a central management database that comprises user device configurations and device profiles. The control plane database includes information such as name server and zone server information, for those devices that may locally log into the switched fabric via a given switch, and those remote devices that are zoned with those local devices and that may log into the switched fabric via another switch. The central management database includes global information for the switched fabric and device profile information (e.g., login interface, Virtual SAN membership, device aliasing, etc.) for devices that have access to the switched fabric and that can also be requested by the various switches in the switched fabric.

Bifurcated control and management planes for fiber channel networks

Systems and methods are disclosed to implement smart zoning using device alias database that preserves TCAM space. Embodiments may consider device types to save an administrator's efforts from splitting application specific zones into two-member (initiator and target) zones.

Smart zoning using device alias database

Techniques are provided herein for receiving at a first network device, a virtual local area network (VLAN) discovery frame from a second network device. The second network device is configured to encapsulate Fiber Channel over Ethernet. The hardware media access control (MAC) address or Port World Wide Name (PWWN) of the second network device is extracted from the VLAN discovery frame. A mapping is identified between the second network device and a corresponding virtual storage area network (VSAN) based on the hardware MAC address or PWWN. The mapping identifies a corresponding VLAN for the second network device to use for login in order to communicate with the corresponding VSAN. Information representing the identified VLAN is sent to the second network device.

Growing community of inventors

Bengaluru, India

Sunil John Varghese