Patent ID: 7873744

Claim:
A storage area network, comprising: a source node; a target node having a world wide (WWNN); a selected port in the target node having a port address and a world wide port name (WWPN); a fabric to which the source node and the target node are coupled; a data structure associated with the source node establishing a relationship between the WWPN of the selected port with a physical slot of the target node in which the selected port is located, the relationship comprising a byte of the WWNN of the target node being a byte indicative of a slot number of the slot in which a port is located; means for obtaining the address of the selected port; means for obtaining the WWPN of the selected port in response to the obtained port address; and means associated with the source node for accessing the data structure and generating the interface_id of the selected port in response to the obtained WWPN.