Patent ID: 8335236

Claim:
A method to isolate Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) traffic from FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP) traffic, comprising: receiving, at a device supporting FCoE and connected with two or more FCoE Forwarders (FCFs) configured as a virtual switch, control traffic comprising a Data Center Bridge Exchange (DCBX) Protocol packet, wherein the control traffic provides information about the virtual switch; automatically configuring an aggregated link between the device and the virtual switch based on the control traffic, the aggregated link comprising a first port of the device connected with a first one of the FCFs and a second port of the device connected with one of the first one and a second one of the FCFs, by designating the first port for FCoE traffic and the second port for FIP traffic; and exchanging FIP and FCoE traffic using the automatically configured aggregated link, wherein FCoE traffic and not FIP traffic is exchanged through the first port, and FIP traffic and not FCOE traffic is exchanged through the second port.