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Fibre Channel, or FC, Is A Gigabit-Speed Network Technology Primarily

Fibre Channel is a gigabit-speed networking technology primarily used for storage networking. It can run over both copper wire and fiber-optic cables. There are three main Fibre Channel topologies: point-to-point, arbitrated loop, and switched fabric. Fibre Channel has six layers, with FC0-FC2 making up the physical layers and FC4 being the application layer that encapsulates protocols like SCSI. Fibre Channel products are available at speeds between 1-20 gigabits per second.

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105 views6 pages

Fibre Channel, or FC, Is A Gigabit-Speed Network Technology Primarily

Fibre Channel is a gigabit-speed networking technology primarily used for storage networking. It can run over both copper wire and fiber-optic cables. There are three main Fibre Channel topologies: point-to-point, arbitrated loop, and switched fabric. Fibre Channel has six layers, with FC0-FC2 making up the physical layers and FC4 being the application layer that encapsulates protocols like SCSI. Fibre Channel products are available at speeds between 1-20 gigabits per second.

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pavangupta
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Fiber Channel:

Fibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily


used for storage networking.[1][2] Fibre Channel is standardized in the
T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for
Information Technology Standards (INCITS), an American National
Standards Institute (ANSI)–accredited standards committee. Fibre
Channel was primarily used in the supercomputer field, but now, has
become the standard connection type for storage area networks (SAN)
in enterprise storage. Despite its name, Fibre Channel signaling can run
on both twisted pair copper wire and fiber-optic cables.[1][2]

Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) is a transport protocol (similar to TCP used


in IP networks) which predominantly transports SCSI commands over
Fibre Channel networks.[1]

Fibre Channel topologies

There are three major Fibre Channel topologies, describing how a


number of ports are connected together. A port in Fibre Channel
terminology is any entity that actively communicates over the network,
not necessarily a hardware port. This port is usually implemented in a
device such as disk storage, an HBA on a server or a Fibre Channel
switch.[1]

 Point-to-Point (FC-P2P). Two devices are connected directly to


each other. This is the simplest topology, with limited
connectivity.[1]

 Arbitrated loop (FC-AL). In this design, all devices are in a loop or


ring, similar to token ring networking. Adding or removing a
device from the loop causes all activity on the loop to be
interrupted. The failure of one device causes a break in the ring.
Fibre Channel hubs exist to connect multiple devices together and
may bypass failed ports. A loop may also be made by cabling each
port to the next in a ring.

o A minimal loop containing only two ports, while appearing


to be similar to FC-P2P, differs considerably in terms of the
protocol.

o Only one pair of ports can communicate concurrently on a


loop.

o Maximum speed of 8GFC.

 Switched fabric (FC-SW). All devices or loops of devices are


connected to Fibre Channel switches, similar conceptually to
modern Ethernet implementations. Advantages of this topology
over FC-P2P or FC-AL include:

o The switches manage the state of the fabric, providing


optimized interconnections.

o The traffic between two ports flows through the switches


only, it is not transmitted to any other port.

o Failure of a port is isolated and should not affect operation


of other ports.

o Multiple pairs of ports may communicate simultaneously in


a fabric.

Point-to- Switched
Attribute Arbitrated loop
Point fabric
~16777216
Max ports 2 127
(224)
Address size N/A 8-bit ALPA 24-bit port ID
Side effect of port Loop fails (until port
Link fails N/A
failure bypassed)
Mixing different link
No No Yes
rates
Not
Frame delivery In order In order
guaranteed
Access to medium Dedicated Arbitrated Dedicated
[edit] Layers

Fibre Channel does not follow the OSI model layering, but is split
similarly into 6 layers, namely:

 FC4 — Protocol Mapping layer, in which application protocols,


such as SCSI or IP, are encapsulated into a PDU for delivery to FC2.

 FC3 — Common Services layer, a thin layer that could eventually


implement functions like encryption or RAID redundancy
algorithms;

 FC2 — Network layer, defined by the FC-PI-2 standard, consists of


the core of Fibre Channel, and defines the main protocols;

 FC1 — Data Link layer, which implements line coding of signals;

 FC0 — PHY, includes cabling, connectors etc.;


Layers FC0 through FC2 are also known as FC-PH, the physical layers of
Fibre Channel.

Fibre Channel routers operate up to FC4 level (i.e. they may operate as
SCSI routers), switches up to FC2, and hubs on FC0 only.

Fibre Channel products are available at 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 16 and 20 Gbit/s;


these protocol flavors are called accordingly 1GFC, 2GFC, 4GFC, 8GFC,
10GFC, 16GFC, or 20GFC. The 16GFC standard was approved by the
INCITS T11 committee in 2010, and those products are expected to
become available in 2011. Products based on the 1GFC, 2GFC, 4GFC,
8GFC and 16GFC standards should be interoperable and backward
compatible. The 1GFC, 2GFC, 4GFC, 8GFC designs all use 8b/10b
encoding, while the 16GFC standard uses 64b/66b encoding. Unlike the
10GFC and 20GFC standards, 16GFC provides backward compatibility
with 4GFC and 8GFC.

The 10 Gbit/s standard and its 20 Gbit/s derivative, however, are not
backward compatible with any of the slower speed devices, as they
differ considerably on FC1 level in using 64b/66b encoding instead of
8b/10b encoding, and are primarily used as inter-switch links.

[edit] Ports
FC topologies and port types

The following types of ports are defined by Fibre Channel:

 node ports
o N_port is a port on the node (e.g. host or storage device) used with both FC-P2P
or FC-SW topologies. Also known as Node port.

o NL_port is a port on the node used with an FC-AL topology. Also known as Node
Loop port.

o F_port is a port on the switch that connects to a node point-to-point (i.e.


connects to an N_port). Also known as Fabric port. An F_port is not loop
capable.

o FL_port is a port on the switch that connects to a FC-AL loop (i.e. to NL_ports).
Also known as Fabric Loop port.

o E_port is the connection between two fibre channel switches. Also known as an
Expansion port. When E_ports between two switches form a link, that link is
referred to as an inter-switch link (ISL).

o EX_port is the connection between a fibre channel router and a fibre channel
switch. On the side of the switch it looks like a normal E_port, but on the side of
the router it is a EX_port.

o TE_port * a Cisco addition to Fibre Channel, now adopted as a standard. It is an


extended ISL or EISL. The TE_port provides not only standard E_port functions
but allows for routing of multiple VSANs (Virtual SANs). This is accomplished by
modifying the standard Fibre Channel frame (vsan tagging) upon ingress/egress
of the VSAN environment. Also known as Trunking E_port.

o VE_Port an INCITS T11 addition, FCIP interconnected E-Port/ISL, i.e. fabrics will
merge.

o VEX_Port a INCITS T11 addition, is a FCIP interconnected EX-Port, routing


needed via lsan zoning to connect initiator to a target.

 general (catch-all) types


o Auto or auto-sensing port found in Cisco switches, can automatically become an
E_, TE_, F_, or FL_port as needed.

o Fx_port a generic port that can become a F_port (when connected to a N_port)
or a FL_port (when connected to a NL_port). Found only on Cisco devices where
oversubscription is a factor.

o G_port or generic port on a switch can operate as an E_port or F_port. Found on


Brocade and McData switches.

o L_port is the loose term used for any arbitrated loop port, NL_port or FL_port.
Also known as Loop port.

o U_port is the loose term used for any arbitrated port. Also known as Universal
port. Found only on Brocade switches.....

(*Note: The term "trunking" is not a standard Fibre Channel term and is
used by vendors interchangeably. For example: A trunk (an aggregation
of ISLs) in a Brocade device is referred to as a Port Channel by Cisco.
Whereas Cisco refers to trunking as an EISL.)

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