Method and apparatus for improving performance of a loop network by selectively bypassing redundant ports and also bypassing faulty ports

摘要

A method and apparatus for improving performance of a loop network (400), in particular a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop. The loop network (400) has two loops (406, 408) and a plurality of dual ported devices (410) each with one port (411, 412) on each loop (406, 408) . The method includes selectively bypassing redundant ports on the loops (406, 408) by a first command means in the form of a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop command to balance port accesses and to reduce the loop overhead by reducing the number of ports (411, 412) in each loop (406, 408). In the event of a fault, bypassing the port of a device (410) by a second command means in the form of a non Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop command and enabling all the bypassed redundant ports with a single command to all ports using the first command means. The first command means does not enable the port bypassed by the second command means.