Patent ID: 7661017

Claim:
A method, comprising: maintaining at least a first zone in a fibre channel arbitrated loop system, wherein a plurality of storage devices is included in the first zone; determining that diagnostic operations have to be performed on a storage device that is included in the plurality of storage devices; generating a second zone that includes the storage device on which the diagnostic operations have to be performed, wherein the storage device is removed from the plurality of storage devices in the first zone leaving a remaining set of storage devices in the first zone; and performing diagnostic operations on the storage device in the second zone while other operations are performed on the remaining set of storage devices in the first zone, wherein the fibre channel arbitrated loop system is comprised of: a host system; a storage controller in communication with the host system; a plurality of fibre channel arbitrated loop switches in communication with the storage controller, wherein the plurality of storage devices is coupled to the plurality of fibre channel arbitrated loop switches; and a plurality of local processors coupled to the plurality of fibre channel arbitrated loop switches, wherein at least one local processor communicates with at least one storage device via at least one fibre channel arbitrate loop switch that couples the at least one local processor to the at least one storage device.