Patent ID: 7382790

Claim:
A Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop interconnect system comprising: a first port in a plurality of ports, a second port in the plurality of ports, said first and second ports including port logic to monitor Open (OPN) arbitrated loop primitives, and adapted to connect to devices supporting a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop protocol, a crossbar switch coupled to the plurality of ports, a route determination apparatus including a routing table comprised of Arbitrated Loop Physical Addresses (ALPAs) and their associated ports, the route determination apparatus separate from the plurality of ports and directly coupled to each of the plurality of ports and the crossbar switch through separate signaling paths, the route determination apparatus configured for routing based on primitives by programming the crossbar switch to establish direct paths between the first and second ports in the crossbar switch according to received OPN arbitrated loop primitives, the direct paths excluding all other ports, wherein the crossbar switch is configured as a primitive switch that creates the direct paths between the first and second ports based on the OPN arbitrated loop primitives, and wherein priority for each port is independent of the ALPAs.