Patent ID: 8238347

Claim:
A network, comprising: a first plurality of switches configured for operation according to the Fibre Channel (“FC”) protocol; and a second plurality of switches configured for operation according to the Ethernet protocol but not configured for operation according to the FC protocol, wherein each of the first plurality of switches and each of the second plurality of switches is configured to simultaneously carry traffic according to multiple protocols on multiple virtual lanes of the same physical link, each one of the multiple protocols being assigned to a different set of one or more of the multiple virtual lanes, wherein each different set of one or more of the multiple virtual lanes carries traffic according to the one of the multiple protocols that has been assigned; wherein the multiple protocols include a first protocol with drop behavior and a second protocol with no-drop behavior, and wherein a first one of the multiple virtual lanes of the physical link is assigned as a drop lane such that the first one of the multiple virtual lanes carries traffic in the first protocol with drop behavior, and a second one of the multiple virtual lanes of the physical link is assigned as a no-drop lane such that the second one of the multiple virtual lanes carries traffic in the second protocol with no-drop behavior.