Fast Recovery of Fibre Channel (FC) Link using Delayed NOS Message after FC Link Failure

An apparatus comprising:

• a trunk port optical transceiver configured to receive optical signals over an optical trunk from a first optical switch and to monitor the received optical signals;
• a client port optical transceiver configured to send client optical signals to a second optical switch;
• and
• a processor coupled to the trunk port optical transceiver and the client port optical transceiver and configured to convert between the received optical signals and the client optical signals in accordance with a Fibre Channel (FC) protocol, wherein the processor is configured to:
• detect an interruption of the received optical signals from the optical trunk;
• responsive to the interruption, delay sending of a Not Operational State (NOS) message to the second optical switch so as to delay triggering of an FC link initialization in the second optical switch;
• and
• while delaying sending of the NOS message, cause idle messages to be sent to the second optical switch.

A system comprising:

• a protection switch module configured to concurrently receive optical signals from a working optical trunk and a parallel failover optical trunk between first and second optical switches that are configured to operate in accordance with a Fibre Channel (FC) protocol, the protection switch module further configured to selectively output the optical signals from either the working optical trunk or a protected optical trunk;
• and
• a muxponder configured to convert the optical signals output by the protection switch module to client optical signals intended for the second optical switch;
• wherein:
• the protection switch module is configured to initially selectively output the optical signal from the working optical trunk;
• the muxponder and the protection switch module are each configured to detect an interruption of optical signals from the working optical trunk and, responsive to detecting the interruption:
• the protection switch module is configured to selectively output the optical signals from the failover optical trunk instead of the working optical trunk;
• the muxponder is configured to:
• delay sending of an Not Operational (NOS) message to the second optical switch so as to delay triggering of FC link initialization;
• and
• while delaying sending of the NOS message, originate and send idle messages to the second optical switch.