06-09-2017, 03:22 PM
Fiber Channel or FC is a high-speed network technology (commonly running at speeds of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 128 gigabits per second) that is mainly used to connect data storage from the computer to the servers. Fiber Channel is primarily used in storage area networks (SANs) in commercial data centers. Fiber Channel networks form a switched fabric because they operate in unison as a large switch. Fiber Channel typically runs on fiber-optic cables inside and between data centers.
Most block storage runs on Fiber Channel Fabrics and supports many top-level protocols. Fiber Channel Protocol (FCP) is a transport protocol that carries SCSI commands predominantly over fiber channel networks. Computer computers run the set of FICON commands over Fiber Channel because of their high reliability and performance. Fiber Channel can be used to transport data from storage systems using solid-state flash memory storage media carrying NVM protocol commands.
Fiber Channel is standardized on the T11 Technical Committee of the International Committee on Information Technology Standards (INCITS), a standards committee accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Fiber Channel was started in 1988, with the ANSI standard approval in 1994, to combine the benefits of multiple physical layer implementations including SCSI, HIPPI and ESCON.
Fiber Channel was designed as a serial interface to overcome the limitations of the SCSI and HIPPI interfaces. FC was developed with state-of-the-art multimode fiber technologies that overcame the speed limitations of the ESCON protocol. By appealing to the large base of SCSI disk drives and leveraging mainframe technologies, the economies of scale developed by Fiber Channel for advanced technologies and deployments became economical and widespread.
Initially, the standard also ratified lower-speed Fiber Channel versions with 132.8125 Mbit / s ("12.5 MB / s"), 265,625 Mbit / s ("25 MB / s") and 531.25 Mbit / s MB / s ") that were already growing out of use at the time. Fiber Channel saw adoption on 1 Gigabit / s Fiber Channel (1GFC) and its success grew with each successive speed. Fiber Channel has doubled in speed every few years since 1996.
Most block storage runs on Fiber Channel Fabrics and supports many top-level protocols. Fiber Channel Protocol (FCP) is a transport protocol that carries SCSI commands predominantly over fiber channel networks. Computer computers run the set of FICON commands over Fiber Channel because of their high reliability and performance. Fiber Channel can be used to transport data from storage systems using solid-state flash memory storage media carrying NVM protocol commands.
Fiber Channel is standardized on the T11 Technical Committee of the International Committee on Information Technology Standards (INCITS), a standards committee accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Fiber Channel was started in 1988, with the ANSI standard approval in 1994, to combine the benefits of multiple physical layer implementations including SCSI, HIPPI and ESCON.
Fiber Channel was designed as a serial interface to overcome the limitations of the SCSI and HIPPI interfaces. FC was developed with state-of-the-art multimode fiber technologies that overcame the speed limitations of the ESCON protocol. By appealing to the large base of SCSI disk drives and leveraging mainframe technologies, the economies of scale developed by Fiber Channel for advanced technologies and deployments became economical and widespread.
Initially, the standard also ratified lower-speed Fiber Channel versions with 132.8125 Mbit / s ("12.5 MB / s"), 265,625 Mbit / s ("25 MB / s") and 531.25 Mbit / s MB / s ") that were already growing out of use at the time. Fiber Channel saw adoption on 1 Gigabit / s Fiber Channel (1GFC) and its success grew with each successive speed. Fiber Channel has doubled in speed every few years since 1996.