A network of switches that employ aggregation of Registered State Change
Notifications (RSCNs) is disclosed. In one embodiment, the network
comprises multiple switches coupled together, and multiple node devices
each directly-coupled to at least one other switch. Each of the switches
preferably provides RSCNs to other switches when a node device state
change is detected. Each of the switches receiving the RSCNs preferably
combines multiple RSCNs to form aggregated RSCN messages that are then
used to notify directly-coupled node devices of state changes. The
aggregation preferably occurs over a predetermined interval up to some
predetermined limit. The aggregated RSCN message for a given node device
preferably includes identifiers of only those node devices that share a
common zone membership with the given node device.