System and method for correlating fabric-level group membership with subnet-level partition membership in a high performance computing environment. An exemplary embodiment can provide an admin partition in a subnet of a network environment, associated with a resource domain at the fabric level of the network environment. The admin partition can be defined by a P_Key that is stored in a fabric-level database. Each fabric resource is identified by an identifier that is stored in the fabric-level database. When fabric resources are added as members to the resource domain, a relationship is created between the P_Key and the identifier of the fabric resource, where the relationship defines the resource as a member of the admin partition. Access rights can be granted based on the relationship.

A variable length field FC address system includes a source device coupled to a target device via an FC fabric. A first FC switch device identifies a number of FC switch devices in the FC fabric, a number of links provided by each FC switch device, a number of sessions required by each link, and then allocates unique FC addresses to the FC switch devices. Each unique FC address associated with an FC switch device includes a domain identifier provided by a first number of bits based on the number of FC switch devices in the FC fabric, an area identifier provided by a second number of bits based on the number of links provided by that FC switch device, and a session identifier provided by a third number of bits based on the number of sessions required by the link provided by that FC switch device.

A Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) pinning system includes a first Fibre Channel Forwarder (FCF) device that is coupled to a Fibre Channel (FC) storage device through a first FCF device port, and that is coupled to a first server device through a second FCF device port that is included on an aggregated interface. The FCF device sends an FCF advertisement through the second FCF device port. The FCF device receives, from the first server device at the second FCF device port in response to sending the FCF advertisement through the second FCF device port, a server message that includes a first server port identifier of a first server port. The FCF device associates the first server port identifier with the second FCF device port to form a first FCF group and pins the first FCF group for FCoE traffic.

System and method for correlating fabric-level group membership with subnet-level partition membership in a high performance computing environment. An exemplary embodiment can provide an admin partition in a subnet of a network environment, associated with a resource domain at the fabric level of the network environment. The admin partition can be defined by a P_Key that is stored in a fabric-level database. Each fabric resource is identified by an identifier that is stored in the fabric-level database. When fabric resources are added as members to the resource domain, a relationship is created between the P_Key and the identifier of the fabric resource, where the relationship defines the resource as a member of the admin partition. Access rights can be granted based on the relationship.

Systems and methods for host-side configuration of a host channel adapter (HCA). An exemplary embodiment can provide a HCA, including a control circuit with a processor and a memory, and at least one port operative to connect the HCA to a network fabric. Additionally, the HCA can include a subnet management agent (SMA) that executes on the HCA, and a software driver for the HCA that includes a control application programming interface (API) that exposes functionality to hyper-privileged software executing on a host. The hyper-privileged software can set, through the control API, configurable variables stored in the memory of the HCA. Based on the value of the set variables, the HCA can operate in one of a legacy mode or one or more other modes.

A method includes obtaining a switch zone set configuration for a switch fabric, the switch zone set configuration comprising one or more switch zones each comprising one or more of host devices interconnected with one or more storage systems via one or more Fibre Channel (FC) switches. The method also includes provisioning the switch zone set configuration in the FC switches and enabling FC ports of the FC switches and establishing the one or more switch zones of the switch zone set configuration in the storage systems. The method further includes validating connectivity by determining whether specified FC ports of the FC switches are connected to specified host bus adapter (HBA) ports of the host devices and the storage systems in accordance with the provisioned switch zone set configuration, and activating the one or more switch zones in an infrastructure environment responsive to successful validation of the connectivity.

Presented are efficient systems and methods for automatically detecting and configuring network connections in Fibre Channel (FC) and similar networks. In various embodiments, this is accomplished by using an I/O module (IOM)'s fabric login (FLOGI) response or FLOGI request to identify the type of an uplink interface as either FC Gateway or FC Direct Attach, determining whether server interfaces coupled to the TOM support FCoE, and then, automatically configuring server interfaces based on the identified type of uplink interface.

A method includes obtaining a switch zone set configuration for a switch fabric, the switch zone set configuration comprising one or more switch zones each comprising one or more of host devices interconnected with one or more storage systems via one or more Fibre Channel (FC) switches. The method also includes provisioning the switch zone set configuration in the FC switches and enabling FC ports of the FC switches and establishing the one or more switch zones of the switch zone set configuration in the storage systems. The method further includes validating connectivity by determining whether specified FC ports of the FC switches are connected to specified host bus adapter (HBA) ports of the host devices and the storage systems in accordance with the provisioned switch zone set configuration, and activating the one or more switch zones in an infrastructure environment responsive to successful validation of the connectivity.

A persistent World Wide Name (WWN)-Fiber Channel Identifier (FCID) assignment system includes a Fiber Channel (FC) networking device and a server device that sets a persistent WWN-FCID bit in a second fabric login that is directed to the FC networking device subsequent to a first fabric login that was directed to the FC networking device and that resulted in the assignment of an FCID to a WWN for the server device. An FC Forwarder (FCF) device receives the second fabric login from the server device. In response to determining that the persistent WWN-FCID bit is set in the second fabric login, the FCF device sends the FC networking device a second fabric discovery corresponding to the second fabric login through a port that was used to send the FC networking device a first fabric discovery corresponding to the first fabric login.

Systems and methods for defining virtual machine fabric profiles of virtual machines. An exemplary embodiment can provide a virtual machine identifier, a virtual host channel adapter instance ID, and a virtual globally unique identifier. The virtual machine identifier, virtual host channel adapter instance ID, and virtual globally unique identifier can be mapped to each other so that the virtual host channel adapter instance ID, and virtual globally unique identifier can be retrieved through access to the virtual machine identifier. Further, a relationship can be created between a P_Key that defines an admin partition and the virtual globally unique identifier, where the relationship between the P_Key and the virtual globally unique identifier defines the virtual globally unique identifier as a member of the admin partition defined by the P_Key.