Patent ID: 7593324

Claim:
A method of gracefully shutting down an inter-switch link between a first switch and a second switch on a Fibre Channel network, the method comprising: (a) determining that the inter-switch link is to be shut-down; (b) modifying forwarding parameters in the first switch to ensure that no further frames are forwarded from the first switch onto the inter-switch link and sending one or more communications to the second switch; (c) sending a communication to the second switch informing it that the link is to be shut down; (d) modifying forwarding parameters in the second switch to ensure that no frames are forwarded from the second switch onto the inter-switch link; (e) ensuring that no frames remain queued in the first switch for transmission on the inter-switch link; (f) receiving confirmation from the second switch that it is prepared for the inter-switch link to shut down; and (g) shutting down the inter-switch link.