Fibre channel network employing registered state change notifications with enhanced payload
First Claim
1. A network that comprises:
- multiple switches coupled together; and
multiple node devices each directly-coupled to at least one switch, wherein each of said multiple switches is configured to transmit state change messages to the other switches after a node device state change is detected, and wherein at least one of the state change messages includes one or more device entries each having one or more properties associated with a particular node device.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A network of switches that employ Registered State Change Notifications (RSCNs) with enhanced payloads is disclosed. In one embodiment, the network comprises multiple switches coupled together, and multiple node devices each directly-coupled to at least one other switch. Each of the switches preferably provides RSCNs to other switches when a node device state change is detected. One or more of the RSCNs preferably includes a device entry having more than four properties associated with the node device undergoing the state change. The switches receiving the enhanced RSCNs preferably maintain caches of remote node device entries copied from the RSCN device entries. The device entries preferably include one or more of the following: Owner Identifier, Port Type, Port Identifier, Port Name, Node Name, Initial Process Associator, Node IP Address, Class of Service, FC-4 Types, Port IP Address, Fabric Port Name, and Hard Address. Traffic overhead may advantageously be reduced.
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Citations
69 Claims
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1. A network that comprises:
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multiple switches coupled together; and
multiple node devices each directly-coupled to at least one switch, wherein each of said multiple switches is configured to transmit state change messages to the other switches after a node device state change is detected, and wherein at least one of the state change messages includes one or more device entries each having one or more properties associated with a particular node device. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A method of providing information about node devices on a network, wherein the method comprises:
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receiving node device add messages or node device delete messages from local node devices;
using the node device add/delete messages to establish and maintain a database of local node device entries;
transmitting state change messages to other switches in response to receiving the node device add/delete messages, wherein the state change messages include at least one device entry having commonly requested properties associated with a particular node device. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42)
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43. A Fibre Channel (FC) fabric that comprises:
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a first FC switch configured to directly couple with at least one FC node device, and configured to maintain a database of local node device entries containing information about FC node devices directly coupled to the first FC switch;
a second FC switch coupled to the first FC switch and configured to directly couple with at least one FC node device, wherein the second FC switch is configured to maintain a cache of remote node device entries containing information about FC node devices directly coupled to switches other than the second FC switch, wherein the first FC switch is configured to transmit state change messages to the second FC switch upon detecting a stage change in FC node devices directly coupled to the first FC switch, wherein the state change messages include a remote node device entry for the cache. - View Dependent Claims (44, 45)
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46. A Fibre Channel frame signal embodied in a carrier wave, comprising:
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a start of frame segment encoding a start-of-frame indicator;
a content segment encoding;
a Registered State Change Notification command code; and
at least one device entry having one or more properties associated with a node device; and
an end of frame segment encoding an end-of-frame indicator. - View Dependent Claims (47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61)
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62. A Fibre Channel switch that comprises:
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a means for directing Fibre Channel frames between ports; and
a name server configured to maintain a database of name server entries for node devices directly coupled to the switch, and configured to transmit registered state change notification messages to other switches after a node device state change is detected, wherein at least one of the state change messages includes at least one device entry with parameter values in a name server entry of a node device associated with the detected a state change. - View Dependent Claims (63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69)
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Specification