Method and system for using extended fabric features with fibre channel switch elements

• US 7,684,401 B2
• Filed: 07/20/2004
• Issued: 03/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/21/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Marvell Asia Pte Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: QLogic Corporation (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Inventors: Dropps, Frank R., Papenfuss, Gary M., Kohlwey, Ernest G., Verba, Craig M., Ross, Edward C.
• Primary Examiner(s): Yao; Kwang B
• Assistant Examiner(s): Rutkowski; Jeffrey M
• Application Number:
  US10/894,547
• Publication Number:
  US 20050018673A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,072 Days
• Field of Search: 370/351, 370/389, 370/392, 370/400, 370/401, 370/395.31, 370/395.72, 370/404, 370470-472, 370/474, 370/475, 370/397, 398/45, 398/57, 709/246, 709/226
• US Class Current: 370/392
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/10 characterised by the switching fabric construction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/111 Switch interfaces, e.g. port details
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/25 Routing or path finding in a switch fabric
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/357 Fibre channel switches

Abstract

A fiber channel switch element and method for routing fiber channel frames is provided. The switch element includes a receive segment that can add a virtual storage area network (“VSAN”) tagging header to frames that are received by the receive segment; and strip the VSAN tagging header before frames are sent to ports that do not support virtual fabric capability. The receive segment includes a table used for matching fabric extension parameters. An incoming frame'"'"'s VSAN identity value is compared to a control word entry to generate a value used for routing the incoming frame. The table is used to determine if a frame is part of a virtual fabric. The routing table for each port is used to route frames and the routing table includes entries for supported virtual fabrics.

Claims

1. A fibre channel switch element used for routing fibre channel frames, comprising:

a port having a receive segment for receiving fibre channel frames;

a transmit segment for transmitting fibre channel frames virtual storage area network cache for generating a zone mask of a matching entry; and

a common segment for storing a look up table that is indexed by port values of a frame'"'"'s destination identifier (D_ID) and a bit map to compare with the zone mask of the matching entry cache generated by the virtual storage area network (“

VSAN”

) cache;

wherein if the VSAN cache entry is to select a column from the look up table, a logical comparison is performed between the zone map and look up table entries; and

if there is no match after the comparison and an encapsulation mode is enabled, then a tagging header is stripped from a frame before the frame is transmitted by the transmit segment.

2. A fibre channel switch element for routing fibre channel frames, comprising:

a plurality of ports for receiving and transmitting fibre channel frames, each port having;

a receive segment for receiving fibre channel frames;

a transmit segment for transmitting fibre channel frames;

a virtual storage area network (“

VSAN”

) cache for generating a VSAN identifier; and

a common segment having a control register for controlling column selection from a domain table;

wherein the domain table having a plurality of columns is used for routing fibre channel frames;

wherein a column of the domain table is selected to route frames based on the VSAN identifier generated from the VSAN cache; and

wherein if a domain identifier is not assigned for a virtual fabric, then a frame for the virtual fabric is rejected.