Method and system for extended port addressing
View Patent ↗Methods and systems for routing frames are provided. A system includes an initiator operationally coupled to a first switch that is coupled to a second switch. The first switch includes a plurality of ports for sending and receiving frames and includes a routing table that identifies a port identifier steering table based on an area field of a frame header of a frame received by the first switch. The first switch also includes a plurality of port identifier tables, where each port identifier table is associated with a unique area field and identifies a same port of the first switch for a plurality of area fields. The second switch stores an area steering table with port identification information associated with an area field of a frame header of a frame received by the second switch and a same port of the second switch is assigned to multiple area fields.
1. A method for routing frames in a network, the method comprising:
receiving a frame at a port of a network device;
extracting a destination field from the frame;
using an area field from the extracted destination field as an index into an area steering data structure;
identifying, using the area steering data structure, an egress port of the network device corresponding to the extracted destination field through which to route the frame; and
routing the frame through the identified egress port;
wherein the area steering data structure stores multiple entries for a same egress port corresponding to different area fields of a same domain.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network device is a switch.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network device stores the area steering data structure.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the network device is a Fibre Channel device.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the extracted destination field is a D_ID field.
6. A method for routing frames in a network, the method comprising:
receiving a frame at a port of a network device;
extracting a destination field from the frame;
using an area field from the extracted destination field to identify a port steering data structure from a route cache data structure;
using the identified port steering data structure to identify an egress port of the network device through which to route the frame; and
routing the frame through the identified egress port;
wherein the port steering data structure stores multiple entries for a same egress port corresponding to different area fields of a same domain.
7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the network device is a switch.
8. The method of claim 6 , wherein the network device stores the port steering data structure.
9. The method of claim 6 , wherein the network device is a Fibre Channel device.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the extracted destination field is a D_ID field.
11. A method for routing frames in a network, the method comprising:
receiving a frame at a port of a network device;
extracting a source field from the frame;
using a domain field and an area field from the extracted source field as an index into a route cache data structure;
identifying, using the route cache data structure, an egress port of the network device corresponding to the extracted source field through which to route the frame; and
routing the frame through the identified egress port;
wherein the route cache data structure stores multiple entries for a same egress port corresponding to different area fields of a same domain.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the network device is a switch.
13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the network device stores the route cache data structure.
14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the network device is a Fibre Channel device.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the extracted destination field is a D_ID field.