Patent ID: 8072987

Claim:
Apparatus for use in a storage system comprising a fibre channel fabric having a database that associates fibre channel names and fibre channel addresses of fibre channel ports coupled to it, the database usable by one or more hosts that use fibre channel addresses to communicate with fibre channel devices, the database used by the host(s) for learning fibre channel name and address associations, the apparatus comprising: a source fibre channel device having one or more source ports coupled to the fibre channel fabric, each source port having a source port name and a source port address; a destination fibre channel device having one or more destination ports coupled to the fibre channel fabric, each destination port having a destination port name and a destination port address; software for copying all data resident on the source fibre channel device to the destination fibre channel device; software for exchanging the source port names with the destination port names so that the source ports have the destination port names and the destination ports have the source port names; software for causing the fabric to reload its database for use by the host(s) so that the database associates the source port names with the destination port addresses and the destination port names with the source port addresses, such that the names known to the host have not changed and the destination fibre channel device now appears to the host as the source fibre channel device.