Patent ID: 7694029

Claim:
A computer program product comprising a computer recordable medium having a computer readable program recorded thereon, wherein the computer readable program, when executed on a computing device, causes the computing device to: store configuration information in association with each of a plurality of unique identifiers; detect a new endpoint being connected to a port of an existing endpoint via a specialized cable in a storage area network, wherein the specialized cable includes an identification communications bus; obtain a unique identifier for the new endpoint via the identification communications bus; receive configuration information associated with the unique identifier; determine whether connection of the new endpoint results in a legal configuration based on the configuration information associated with the unique identifier; and disable the port of the existing endpoint responsive to a determination that connection of the new endpoint does not result in a legal configuration, wherein the specialized cable comprises an identification communications interface, wherein the new endpoint writes the unique identifier to the identification communications interface in the specialized cable, and wherein the computer readable program causes the computing device to obtain the unique identifier by reading the unique identifier from the identification communications interface in the specialized cable.