A technique is provided for facilitating fabric membership login for an
N_Port of a storage area network. A communication from a network node is
received. The communication may include a portion of criteria associated
with the N_Port. Using at least a portion of the portion of criteria, a
virtual fabric identifier corresponding to a virtual fabric which is
associated with the N_Port may be automatically identified. Fabric
configuration information, which includes the virtual fabric identifier,
may be automatically provided to the network node. A fabric login request
from the N_Port to login to the virtual fabric may then be received.
According to a specific embodiment, the communication may be transmitted
from a network node to an F_Port on a Fiber Channel switch. When the
N_Port received the fabric configuration information from the F_Port, the
generating, using at least a portion of the received fabric configuration
information, a fabric login request message may be generated by the
N_Port which includes a fabric login request for the N_Port to login to
the virtual fabric corresponding to the virtual fabric identifier. In at
least one implementation, the N_Port and/or F_Port may be configured or
designed to support trunking functionality.