Automated fibre channel device onboarding using FIDO protocol: Transforming SAN infrastructure management

The onboarding of Fibre Channel (FC) devices in Storage Area Network (SAN) environments presents significant operational challenges for data center administrators, involving multiple manual configuration steps that create bottlenecks in infrastructure expansion. This article explores how adapting the FIDO protocol—originally developed for IoT device authentication—can revolutionize FC device provisioning by enabling automated, secure onboarding processes. Through a comprehensive article of current onboarding workflows and their limitations, it presents a technical framework for implementing FIDO-based zero-touch provisioning that eliminates the need for manual IP assignment, firewall configuration, management system discovery, monitoring setup, and switch parameter synchronization. The proposed methodology substantially reduces deployment timeframes while maintaining security compliance and operational consistency across SAN infrastructures.