The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 25, 2000
Filed:
Apr. 07, 1999
Ronald K Arp, Greeley, CO (US);
Jeffrey J Bain, Greeley, CO (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
Devices for a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop are initially unconfigured, and during the first loop initialization, arbitrate as a soft addressed device. The chosen address is then stored in non-volatile memory. Once an address is stored in non-volatile memory, during subsequent loop initializations, the device arbitrates as a hard address device. Because the address was chosen during a standard Fibre Channel Loop Initialization Process, the risk of future hard address conflicts is greatly reduced. Preferably, however, firm addresses may be erased by operator control, or by system command. Firm addressing provides the fixed address benefits of hard addressing, but substantially reduces the risk of hard address conflicts, while remaining compatible with the ANSI standards for Fibre Channel.