Fibre channel switch that aggregates registered state change notifications

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.