Patent ID: 7890654

Claim:
A method of discovering topology in a storage area network having a plurality of VSANs in a network fabric, wherein the VSANs include a first VSAN having a plurality of network devices, the method comprising: (a) defining a first one of the network devices of the first VSAN as a Topology Update (TU) Owner, wherein the other network devices of the first VSAN are not defined as TU Owners; (b) at the first network device, receiving data that indicates a topology change in the first VSAN and includes an identifier for a virtual switch of the first VSAN that corresponds to a device of another VSAN that has been propagated into the first VSAN, wherein such virtual switch has a same domain as the propagated device, which domain is unused by other switches corresponding to non-propagated devices of the first VSAN, wherein the topology change indicates one or more of the following: a network device has been added to the first VSAN, a network device has been removed from the first VSAN, or a plurality of network devices have been connected in a new configuration in the first VSAN; (c) at the first network device, generating or updating one or more TU database(s) for the plurality of VSANs of the network fabric based on the received topology change; and (d) the first network device causing the topology change to be propagated in the form of a Topology Update across the network fabric to network devices in the plurality of VSANs of such network fabric, wherein the Topology Update indicates that data in the Topology Update should be propagated by receiving network devices throughout the VSANs of the fabric.