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:
Mar. 22, 2011
Filed:
Mar. 02, 2009
Claudio Desanti, Berkeley, CA (US);
Silvano Gai, San Jose, CA (US);
Dante Malagrino, Mountain View, CA (US);
Dinesh G. Dutt, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Claudio DeSanti, Berkeley, CA (US);
Silvano Gai, San Jose, CA (US);
Dante Malagrino, Mountain View, CA (US);
Dinesh G. Dutt, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A way to assign flexible prefixes to Switches in Fiber Channel Fabrics while using the currently defined FC_ID address space. This allows end devices in different Fiber Channel Fabrics to communicate with one another, without requiring modifications to existing end devices, nor to perform Network Address Translation between Fabrics. The existing address space for each Switch includes a dynamically configurable number of host bits sufficient to address all the end devices coupled to the Switch and the Switch itself. The remaining bits, called the Switch prefix, are used to identify the Switch in the switching Fabric. In an alternative embodiment, the Switch prefix bits may be further configured into a first sub-set of bits used to identify a specific Fabric (Fabric prefix) and a second sub-set of bits used to identify the Switch in the Fabric (Switch_ID). The flexible addressing scheme enables end devices in different Fabrics to communicate with one another without expanding the Fiber Channel address space or the need to perform Network Address Translations.