Many storage-area networks (SANs) were developed to facilitate high-speed storage of large quantities of digital data. However, at least some conventional SANs present increased maintenance costs and complexities that can discourage their use. For example, in some SANs, its difficult and time consuming to properly reconfigure a Fiber Channel switch after a system failure since the switch is configurable by multiple entities. Accordingly, the present inventors devised, among other things, a method and systems for automatically maintaining and synchronizing one or more backup copies of configuration data.