BACKGROUND

The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to merging zones in information handling systems that provide Fibre Channel (FC) communications.

As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.

Some information handling systems are configured to provide a Fibre Channel (FC) Storage Area Network (SAN) for the storage of data. For example, FC switch device(s) may provide an FC fabric that couples storage devices providing a SAN to server devices utilizing the FC protocol. In such FC fabrics, each FC switch device may utilize FC zoning, which provides for the partitioning of the FC fabric into smaller subsets to restrict interference, add security, and simplify management, and operates to restrict zone members (e.g., target devices and initiator devices, particular ports of devices, etc.) included in a zone to communicating with other zone members included in that zone.

When FC switch devices included in two different FC fabrics are joined via a link (e.g., an Inter-Switch Link (ISL)) between the FC switch devices, zone merging operations may be performed during the initialization of the link. In conventional zone merging operations, an entire copy of a first active zone set provided for the first FC switch device will be merged with a second active zone set provided for the second FC switch device, and an entire copy of the second active zone set provided for the second FC switch device will be merged with the first active zone set provided for the first FC switch device. The zone merging operations discussed above may involve a relatively large number of zones, and thus can become a costly operation in a scaled environment that may take several minutes to complete. Furthermore, when a conflict between zones occurs, the conflict may cause the link initialization to fail, resulting in all data traffic provided on the associated link between the FC switch devices to be blocked. Further still, conventional zone merging operations only occur when a link between the FC switch devices is being established, or there is a change to the zones themselves.

Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an FC zone merging system that addresses the issues discussed above.

SUMMARY

According to one embodiment, an Information Handling System (IHS) includes a communication system; a processing system coupled to the communication system; and a memory system that is coupled to the processing system and that includes instructions that, when executed by the processing system, cause the processing system to provide a zone merging engine that is configured to: perform limited zone merging operations subsequent to establishing a link between the communication system and a first FC networking device that include: merging, via the link with one or more first FC networking device zones associated with the first FC networking device, each of one or more second FC networking device zones associated with the communication system that identifies at least one zone member device that is not local to the communication system, while not merging each of the one or more second FC networking device zones that identify only zone members that are local to the communication system.

