Patent ID: 7660302

Claim:
A Fibre Channel Switch element, comprising: a first switch port identified by a unique identifier coupled to at least a first switch fabric that is coupled to at least a first device; a second switch port identified by a unique identifier coupled to at least a second switch fabric that is coupled to at least a second device; wherein the first switch port registers the second device as a Proxy Device using a first virtual identifier and the second switch port registers the first device as a Proxy Device using a second virtual identifier; wherein the first device and the second device are registered with a Name Server based on entries from an Inter-Fabric Name Server; and before the first device can communicate with the second device, the first device identity and the second device identity is verified with an Inter-Fabric Zone set configured by a user; wherein the first device sends a frame with a virtual destination address information of the second device to the first switch fabric and the first switch fabric sends the frame to the first switch port; wherein the first switch port uses a translation module to translate the virtual destination address in the frame to an actual destination address of the second device; and also translates an actual source address value of the first device to a virtual source address value recognized by the second switch port; and wherein the first switch port sends the frame to the second switch port that automatically forwards the frame to the second device via the second switch fabric without using a standard Inter-Fabric frame header.