Fibre Channel Storage Area Networking (SAN)

Check out full details of Fibre Channel and Storage Area Networking at:-

http://www.fibrechannel.com/

Table showing comparison with normal networking transports:-

	Fibre Channel	Gigabit Ethernet	ATM
Application	Storage, Network, Video, Clusters	Network	Network, Video
Topology	Point-Point, Shared Loops, Hub, Switched	Point -Point, Hub, Switched	Switched
Baud Rate	1.06Gbps	1.25Gbps	622Mbps
Scalability to higher rates	2.12Gbps 4.24Gbps	Not Defined	1.24Gbps
Guaranteed Delivery	Yes	No	No
Congestion Data Loss	No	Yes	Yes
Frame Sized	0-2KB Variable	0-1.5KB Variable	53Bytes
Flow Control	Credit Based	Rate Based	Rate Based
Physical Media	Copper & Fibre	Copper & Fibre	Copper & Fibre
Protocols Supported	Network, SCSI, Video	Network	Network, Video

Fibre Channel Systems

Fibre Channel systems are assembled from adapters, hubs, storage, and switches. Host bus adapters are installed into hosts like any other SCSI host bus adapter. Hubs link individual elements together to form a shared bandwidth loop. Disk systems integrate a loop into the back plane. A port bypass circuit provides the ability to hot swap Fibre Channel disks and Fibre Channel links to a hub. Fibre Channel switches provide scalable systems of almost any size.

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Last modified: 04 June 2005