Method and system for managing I/O transmissions in a fibre channel network after a break in communication

A system for maintaining the state of a network device following a state change in a Fibre Channel network, comprising:

• instructions for sending from a first network device a command comprising a triplet comprising the network address, a node name, and a port name for the first network device;
• instructions for receiving in a second network device the triplet from said first network device, said first network device and said second network device;
• instructions for determining whether said first network device and said second network device were in communication prior to the network state change by determining whether said triplet received by said second network device matches in said node name and said port name a prior triplet identifying said first network device prior to said network state change;
• and
• instructions for continuing communications in the event that said triplet matches in said node name and said port name.

A method for maintaining node states across network address changes in a Fibre Channel network having first and second nodes in communication with each other, comprising the steps of:

• maintaining, in the first node, identifying data for the first node and the second node;
• maintaining, in the second node, identifying data for the first node and the second node;
• initiating a first data transmission which traverses a link between the first node and the second node
• following a failure of the link between the first node and the second node, transmitting identifying data for the first node from the first node to other nodes with which the first node is in communication, and transmitting identifying data for the second node from the second node to other nodes with which the second node is in communication
• if the first node receives identifying data for the second node from the second node and the second node receives identifying data for the first node from the first node, resuming the first data transmission over the link between the first node and the second node without performing a restart process.