Patent ID: 8514856

Claim:
A method, comprising: communicating, by a Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) proxy point (FPP) coupled by a link to one or more FCoE end-point devices for which the FPP is responsible, control and management information with a separately housed FCoE control and management plane (F-CMP) server in communication with one or more other FPPs coupled by a link to one or more other FCoE end-point devices for which the one or more other FPPs are responsible, the control and management information to direct data plane functionality of the FPP; sharing, by the FPP, a single Fibre Channel domain identifier (ID) with the F-CMP server and the one or more other FPPs that the F-CMP server is in communication with; proxying, by the FPP, control and management protocols between the F-CMP server and the one or more FCoE end-point devices for which the FPP is responsible; and processing FCoE traffic at the FPP according to the directed data plane functionality, wherein FCoE traffic transmitted between first and second FCoE end-point devices separated by an Ethernet network is directed over the Ethernet network between correspondingly responsible FPPs without traversing the F-CMP server.