Patent ID: 8700751

Claim:
A method comprising: executing zone server software to: access a first zone member from a group of zone members in a Fibre Channel zone, where each zone member in the group of zone members is assigned a first attribute value indicating whether the zone member is a target or an initiator and a second attribute value indicating a time-range in which the Fibre Channel zone is operational, the target configured as a storage device and the initiator configured as a hosting device; and compare the attribute of a second zone member, with the first attribute value of the first zone member to determine whether the first zone member and the second zone member have different first attribute values; determine that the group of zone members is active and that other groups of zone members are not active; and executing an access control list (ACL) software module to: based on determining that the group of zone members is active and that other groups of zone members are not active, program an ACL entry for the second zone member to access the first zone member during a particular time based upon (i) the first attribute value of the first zone member being different from the first attribute value of the second zone member and (ii) the time-range in which the Fibre Channel zone is operational.