15-11-2012, 04:12 PM
Fibre Channel
[attachment=39641]
What is Fibre Channel?
A high-speed transmission technology used as a peripheral channel or network backbone.
It is a 100MB/sec, full-duplex, serial, data communication technology.
It supports several common transport protocols like Internet Protocol (IP) and SCSI.
It operates over copper and fiber optic cables at distances of up to 10 Kilometers.
It is supported by many suppliers like Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Seagate, and Sun Microsystems.
Standards for Fibre Channel
The T11 Committee of NCIT, a U.S. standards-development organization under the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) meets 6 times a year to develop Fibre Channel standards.
Current standards:
Some examples of current standards.
Performance from 266 megabits/second to over 4 gigabits/second.
Support for distances of up to 10Km.
High-bandwidth utilization with distance insensitivity.
Support for multiple cost/performance levels, from small systems to super computers.
Ability to carry multiple existing interface command sets, including Internet Protocol (IP), SCSI, IPI, and audio and video.
Fibre Channel Architecture
Fibre Channel transfers digital data between sources and users of information.
This digital data represents different types of information like programs, files, graphics, videos and sound.
Each having its own structure, protocol, connectivity, measures of performance and reliability requirements.
Network Connections are established between the node ports (N_Ports), that are in computers, servers, storage devices, and printers, and the fabric ports (F_Ports), that are on the periphery of the Fibre Channel Fabric.
The Fibre Channel Architecture specifies in detail the link Characteristics and protocol used between the node ports and the fabric ports.
The Fibre Channel can interconnect more than 16 million node ports in a single address.
Fibre Channel Layers
Five layers FC-1, FC-2, FC-3, and FC-4.
Define the physical media, transmission rates, encoding scheme, framing protocol, flow control, common services, and the upper level interfaces.
FC-0, FC-1, and FC-2 - define how Fibre Channel ports interact with other ports.
They are refereed to as the Fibre Channel Physical levels (PC-PH Levels).
FC-3, and FC-4 - define how Fibre Channel ports interact with applications in host systems.
FC-3 and FC-4:
FC-3: Common Services
Defines commons services provided by two or more node ports in a host system. (Ex. Two or more node ports, sharing a common port address, which increases the bandwidth available from node port to fabric ports).
FC-4: Protocol Mappings
Formed by series of profiles defining how to map legacy protocols to Fibre Channel.
Profiles for protocols like IP, SCSI, for disk drives, and several others are already defined here.
Fabric Topologies
There are three topologies for Fibre Channel Fabrics:
Point-to-point
Where two node ports have the same signaling rate and class of service.
Switched
Where 16 million node ports can be interconnected.
Loop (Ring)
Organizes up to 127 Fibre Channel ports on a ring, and distributes the routing functions among them.
It is used more than the switched topology.
It also costs less than switched topology.
Technology Comparison
Clearly from this table we can observe that Fibre Channel is the best technology:
Because it provides a higher data rate than ATM.
Because it can be employed in more topologies, when compared to the Ethernet, and ATM.
It is more reliable since the delivery of data is guaranteed and there’s no loss of data.
It has a bigger frame size of up to 2KB when comparing it to Ethernet’s 1.5KB, and ATM’s 53B
And also because it supports Network, SCSI, and video protocols, whereas Ethernet only supports Network, and ATM only supports Network and Video Protocols.
[attachment=39641]
What is Fibre Channel?
A high-speed transmission technology used as a peripheral channel or network backbone.
It is a 100MB/sec, full-duplex, serial, data communication technology.
It supports several common transport protocols like Internet Protocol (IP) and SCSI.
It operates over copper and fiber optic cables at distances of up to 10 Kilometers.
It is supported by many suppliers like Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Seagate, and Sun Microsystems.
Standards for Fibre Channel
The T11 Committee of NCIT, a U.S. standards-development organization under the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) meets 6 times a year to develop Fibre Channel standards.
Current standards:
Some examples of current standards.
Performance from 266 megabits/second to over 4 gigabits/second.
Support for distances of up to 10Km.
High-bandwidth utilization with distance insensitivity.
Support for multiple cost/performance levels, from small systems to super computers.
Ability to carry multiple existing interface command sets, including Internet Protocol (IP), SCSI, IPI, and audio and video.
Fibre Channel Architecture
Fibre Channel transfers digital data between sources and users of information.
This digital data represents different types of information like programs, files, graphics, videos and sound.
Each having its own structure, protocol, connectivity, measures of performance and reliability requirements.
Network Connections are established between the node ports (N_Ports), that are in computers, servers, storage devices, and printers, and the fabric ports (F_Ports), that are on the periphery of the Fibre Channel Fabric.
The Fibre Channel Architecture specifies in detail the link Characteristics and protocol used between the node ports and the fabric ports.
The Fibre Channel can interconnect more than 16 million node ports in a single address.
Fibre Channel Layers
Five layers FC-1, FC-2, FC-3, and FC-4.
Define the physical media, transmission rates, encoding scheme, framing protocol, flow control, common services, and the upper level interfaces.
FC-0, FC-1, and FC-2 - define how Fibre Channel ports interact with other ports.
They are refereed to as the Fibre Channel Physical levels (PC-PH Levels).
FC-3, and FC-4 - define how Fibre Channel ports interact with applications in host systems.
FC-3 and FC-4:
FC-3: Common Services
Defines commons services provided by two or more node ports in a host system. (Ex. Two or more node ports, sharing a common port address, which increases the bandwidth available from node port to fabric ports).
FC-4: Protocol Mappings
Formed by series of profiles defining how to map legacy protocols to Fibre Channel.
Profiles for protocols like IP, SCSI, for disk drives, and several others are already defined here.
Fabric Topologies
There are three topologies for Fibre Channel Fabrics:
Point-to-point
Where two node ports have the same signaling rate and class of service.
Switched
Where 16 million node ports can be interconnected.
Loop (Ring)
Organizes up to 127 Fibre Channel ports on a ring, and distributes the routing functions among them.
It is used more than the switched topology.
It also costs less than switched topology.
Technology Comparison
Clearly from this table we can observe that Fibre Channel is the best technology:
Because it provides a higher data rate than ATM.
Because it can be employed in more topologies, when compared to the Ethernet, and ATM.
It is more reliable since the delivery of data is guaranteed and there’s no loss of data.
It has a bigger frame size of up to 2KB when comparing it to Ethernet’s 1.5KB, and ATM’s 53B
And also because it supports Network, SCSI, and video protocols, whereas Ethernet only supports Network, and ATM only supports Network and Video Protocols.