Patent ID: 7904599

Claim:
A method of operating a storage-area network including at least one FC-compliant switch having a first zone configuration data set, the method comprising: detecting a change in a zone, an alias, or a zone set definition in the first zone configuration data set; updating a second zone configuration data set in response to detecting a change in the first zone configuration data set, the updating of the second zone configuration data set comprises: appending a complete and date-stamped copy of first zone configuration data from the first zone configuration data set to the second zone configuration data set, the second zone configuration data set being located in a memory device in a storage router coupled to the at least one FC-compliant switch determining whether the detected change in the first zone configuration data set was made by an authorized changer; and updating the second zone configuration data set if the determination is that the detected change was made by the authorized changer; and restoring the first zone configuration data set for the at least one FC-compliant switch from the second zone configuration data set, the restoration comprising isolating the at least one FC-compliant switch.