Domain-Independent Persistent Fibre Channel Identifiers

摘要

A Fibre Channel switch and related methods are provided for a relative addressing scheme for domain values used by the switch to avoid losing other portions of a Fibre Channel identifier if a particular run-time domain becomes invalid. At a Fibre Channel switch, data is stored that assigns a relative domain field value to a run-time domain in one of a plurality of virtual storage area networks. The relative domain field value used for a Fibre Channel identifier is determined for each of a plurality of devices connected to the Fibre Channel switch based on the run-time domain of the respective devices and the virtual storage area network in which the respective devices are active. A Fibre Channel identifier is stored in a memory of the Fibre Channel switch for each of the plurality of devices. The Fibre Channel identifier comprises the relative domain field value determined for the device together with area and port values for the device. The relative domain value is either a reserved domain field value for an existing virtual storage area network or any of the regular domain field values for a new virtual storage area network. The reserved domain field value is a domain field value that is not to be explicitly used in a Fibre Channel network for Fibre Channel identifiers according to the applicable Fibre Channel industry standards.