Patent ID: 7533175

Claim:
A machine-implemented method for a storage system to transmit an IP packet over a Fibre Channel (FC) network, the method comprising: accessing an FC name server database in response to a request for a connection over the FC network with a destination IP address; discovering an FC network address corresponding to the destination IP address by searching a plurality of subfields in the FC name server database according to positions of the plurality of subfields, the FC name server database comprising a master field for a master storage server and a failover field for a failover storage server for the master storage server, wherein the master and failover fields are each partitioned into first and second subfields, the second subfield of the failover field stores an IP address for the master storage server if the master storage server fails, and wherein the second subfields are searched prior to searching the first subfields; establishing the connection over the FC network using the discovered FC network address; and transmitting the IP packet using the established connection over the FC network; wherein the plurality of subfields are positioned in a symbolic node name field of the FC name server database.