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AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorWilliam G. Holland
Estimating the term…
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to Fibre Channel (FC) switch interoperability and provide a novel and non-obvious data processing system, method and computer program product for obtaining multiple port addresses by a FC switch directly from a SAN fabric. In one embodiment, the system uses an N_Port connection from the last tier FC SAN switch to connect to the rest of the SAN fabric and employs the N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) Fibre Channel feature. The NPIV feature allows one physical FC port (N_Port) to login to a SAN fabric multiple times and receive unique N_Port IDs with each login. This allows the one physical FC port (N_Port) to act as multiple logical N_Ports.
A data processing system configured for fibre channel communications comprising:
An address assignment for a switch, the method comprising:
An address assignment for a switch, the method comprising:
A computer program product comprising a computer usable tangible medium having computer usable program code for address assignment for a switch, the computer program product including:
A computer program product comprising a computer usable tangible medium having computer usable program code for address assignment for a switch, the computer program product including:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
In which an application is distributed across nodes in the network: for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for…
Packet switching elements: routing or path finding in a switch fabric
For storage area networks: fibre channel switches
Digital communication
About 1 year 9 months of term left · ends 25 Jul 2028 (estimated)
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data communications and more particularly to a Fibre Channel (FC) switch.
2. Description of the Related Art
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. The embodiments illustrated herein are presently preferred, it being understood, however, that the invention is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a data communications network configured with an FC Switch programmed to obtain multiple port identifications directly from a SAN fabric;
FIG. 2 is a flow chart illustrating a process for a FC Switch Module to request a node address (N_Port ID) from the network fabric; and
The present invention provides a data processing system, method and computer program product for obtaining multiple port addresses by a FC switch directly from a SAN fabric. The invention provides a FC Switch Module configured to provide an interface between multiple servers and a SAN fabric. The FC Switch Module provides “NPIV port” mode support and connects to the SAN fabric as an N_Port to establish port identification (N_Port IDs) for itself, if desired, and for each Host Bus Adaptor (HBA) port that connects to the FC Switch Module on behalf of a server.
The fabric can provide support for NPIV connected servers, as is know in the art. That support is sufficient for the fabric to support this new “NPIV port” mode from the FC Switch Module.
In illustration, FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a data communications network configured with an FC Switch Module programmed to obtain multiple port identifications (N_Port ID) directly from a SAN fabric. As shown in FIG. 1 a data processing network 90 can include a server chassis 100 which can be, for instance, a BladeCenter™ Server Chassis manufactured by International Business Machines Corporation of Armonk, N.Y., United States. The server chassis 100 can include multiple server computing devices 102a-102n and a FC Switch Module 104, however, the multiple server computing devices 102a-102n and the FC Switch Module 104 can be standalone system components and reside outside the server chassis 100 either separately or in combination.