Method and apparatus for buffer management

摘要

A fibre channel switch having a plurality of fibre ports (F_ports) to implement class 2 frame switching transfers of frames between a plurality of Node-ports (N_ports), the fibre channel switch also providing concurrent access and tracking of a plurality of memory buffers associated with each F_port that temporarily store frames prior to routing between F_ports on the fibre channel switch and a plurality of state machines, each having a one-to-one correspondence to a respective receive buffer, track the current state of each buffer to ensure the validity and status of available memory buffers prior to the transfer to a frame. <IMAGE>