Patent ID: 8111610

Claim:
A method of flagging a port condition in a network, said network comprising a plurality of ports communicating with each other in a ring configuration and operating in accordance with a high-speed network protocol, said method comprising: detecting a port condition associated with one of the plurality of ports, said port condition normally triggering a re-initialization of the plurality of ports in said network; generating a non-intrusive condition flag in response to said port condition, the non-intrusive condition flag identifying a source of the port condition; and sending the non-intrusive condition flag to each of the plurality of ports in the ring configuration to avoid the re-initialization of the plurality of ports in said network, wherein the non-intrusive condition flag is recognized by one or more enabled ports and ignored by other ports amongst the plurality of ports, said one or more enabled ports being notified of the source of the port condition from said non-intrusive condition flag.