Patent ID: 8811399

Claim:
A method for forwarding Fibre Channel Initialization Protocol (FIP) frames and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) frames utilizing FCoE device interconnection apparatus (FIA) and a Fibre Channel over Ethernet device interconnection apparatus controller (FIAC) from a source FCoE device to a destination FCoE device, the method comprising: sending a command from the FIAC to the FIA to identify received HP frames and forward the received FIP frames with the original destination and source Ethernet MAC addresses, receiving a FIP frame from the source FCoE device by the FIA, identifying and forwarding the FIP frame based on the original destination source Ethernet MAC address, sending a command from the FIAC to the FIA to identify received FCoE frames, replace the source and destination Ethernet MAC addresses in the received FCoE frames, and forwarding the frames, receiving a FCoE frame from the source FCoE device by the FIA, identifying and replacing the source and destination Ethernet MAC addresses in the received FCoE frame and maintaining the contents of the encapsulated Fibre Channel frame within the received FCoE frame, and forwarding the FCoE frame with replaced source and destination Ethernet MAC addresses to the destination FCoE device.