Patent ID: 7522619

Claim:
A system for interconnecting a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop having one or more directly attached Private Loop Devices and an Ethernet link to communicate Fibre Channel frames, comprising: a first Arbitrated Loop containing one or more private loop devices, an Ethernet link, a Fibre Channel private loop device interconnect system, the interconnect system including: a first port containing a first port control module coupled to the first Arbitrated Loop, the first port control module containing a Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop Port State Machine including an active L_Port, implementing the Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop protocol, including the generation of the arbitrate primitive signals (ARBs), the open primitive signals (OPNs), and the close primitive signals (Closes), the first Loop Port State Machine providing point to point connection between the first port loop state machine and a private loop device on the first Arbitrated Loop, route determination circuitry for selecting a routes between the port control module and the Ethernet link, and a connectivity apparatus coupled to the port control module and to the route determination apparatus for switching frames between the port control module and the Ethernet link under control of the route determination apparatus, whereby Fibre Channel frames are transferred between a private loop device on the first Arbitrated Loop and the Ethernet link.