Patent ID: 8379665

Claim:
A bridge device for coupling multiple devices to a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) communication medium along with other FC-AL target devices coupled to the FC-AL communication medium, the bridge device comprising: a Fibre Channel layer 2 logic circuit to implement Fibre Channel layer 2 features in accordance with Fibre Channel protocols and to maintain arbitration information for each of multiple Target Arbitrated Loop Physical Addresses (T-ALPAs) managed by the bridge device, the arbitration information comprising a request indicator for each of the multiple T-ALPAs and an access window indicator for each of the multiple T-ALPAs, the Fibre Channel layer 2 logic circuit generates arbitration signals derived from the arbitration information; and an FC-AL layer logic circuit including a Loop Port State Machine logic circuit, the Loop Port State Machine logic circuit coupled to receive the arbitration signals wherein the Loop Port State Machine logic circuit controls arbitration exchanges on the FC-AL communication medium, wherein the Loop Port State Machine logic circuit provides access fairness for all T-ALPAs managed by the bridge device based on the arbitration signals in cooperation with access fairness associated with said other FC-AL target devices coupled to the FC-AL communication medium.