Patent ID: 7564789

Claim:
A method for processing fibre channel frames, comprising: (a) providing a plurality of virtual lanes to a fibre channel switch element having a plurality of ports, each of the virtual lane configured to transmit one or more frames between a source and a destination; (b) receiving a fibre channel frame at a receive segment of one of the plurality of ports of the fibre channel switch element; (c) determining a hop count for the frame based on a destination identifier value (D_ID) included in a header of the fibre channel frame at the receive segment, with a hop count value indicative of a frame destined for another port of the fibre channel switch element; (d) assigning a virtual lane for the frame based on the determined hop count at the receive segment; (e) modifying the assigned virtual lane at the transmit segment of one of the plurality of ports of the fibre channel switch element if the assigned virtual lane by the receive segment is not indicative of a frame destined for another port of the fibre channel switch element, and if the assigned virtual lane is indicative of a frame destined for another port of the fibre channel switch element, no virtual lane is assigned to the frame at the transmit segment; (e) determining if the assigned virtual lane at the transmit segment has available credit to transmit the fibre channel frame; and (f) transmitting the fibre channel frame using the assigned virtual lane at the transmit segment, if credit is available.