System and method for resolving fibre channel device addresses on a network using the device's fully qualified domain name

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention provides a system and method for discovering a fibre channel device in a network that substantially eliminates or reduces disadvantages and problems associated with previously developed discovery systems and methods.
More specifically, the present invention provides a system for determining a fibre channel device address on a storage network using the device's fully qualified domain name.
To accomplish the fibre channel device discovery, a domain name query is sent from a host computer to a domain name server that includes the fully qualified domain name of the device (such as a storage router) in order to obtain the Internet Protocol address for the storage router.
After locating the Internet Protocol address for the storage router based on the fully qualified domain name, the domain name server will send the storage router's Internet Protocol address to the host computer.
The host computer then sends an address resolution protocol request containing the storage router's Internet protocol address over the storage area network to determine a node name for the storage router.
The storage router gets the request and responds with an address resolution protocol reply containing its node name to the host computer.
The host computer sends a fibre channel address resolution protocol request containing the storage router node name to the storage router to determine the router's physical address.
The storage router responds with a fibre channel address resolution protocol reply containing the storage router's physical address to the host computer.
The invention can then be used to discover storage devices attached to the storage router.
After the storage router physical address is located, an inquiry can be made to determine the physical address of the storage devices, and whether the storage devices are compatible with the client application accessing the storage devices.
The present invention provides an important technical advantage by discovering the fibre channel address (a storage or FCP/SCSI protocol) of a storage router using the storage router's fully qualified domain name (a networking or IP protocol)