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][2]

Contents
[hide] 1 History 2 Fibre Channel topologie s 3 Layers 4 Ports 5 Optical carrier medium variants 6 Fibre Channel infrastruc ture 7 Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters 8 Developm ent tools 9 See also 10 Referenc es 10. 1 INC ITS Fibr e Cha nne l sta nda rds 11 Sources 12 Further reading 13 External links

//<![CDATA[ if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } //]]>[edit] History
Fibre Channel started in 1988, with ANSI standard approval in 1994, as a way to simplify the HIPPI system then in use for similar roles. HIPPI used a massive 50-pair cable with bulky connectors, and had limited cable lengths. When Fibre Channel started to compete for the mass storage market its primary competitor was IBM's proprietary Serial Storage Architecture (SSA) interface. Eventually the market chose Fibre Channel over SSA, rather than give IBM control over the next generation of mid- to high-end storage technology. Fibre Channel was primarily concerned with simplifying the connections and increasing distances, as opposed to increasing speeds. Later, designers added the goals of connecting SCSI disk storage, providing higher speeds and far greater numbers of connected devices. It also added support for any number of "upper layer" protocols, including SCSI, ATM, and IP, with SCSI being the predominant usage. The following table shows Fibre Channel speed variants:[3] Fibre Channel Variants NAME Line-Rate (GBaud) Throughput (MBps)* 1GFC 1.0625 200 2GFC 2.125 400 4GFC 4.25 800 8GFC 8.5 1600 10GFC Serial 10.52 2550 10GFC Parallel 12.75 16GFC 14.025 3200 20GFC 21.04 5100 * - Throughput for duplex connections Availability 1997 2001 2005 2008 2004 2011 2008

[edit] 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. A minimal loop containing only two ports, while appearing to be similar to FC-P2P, differs considerably in terms of the protocol. Only one pair of ports can communicate concurrently on a loop. 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: The switches manage the state of the fabric, providing optimized interconnections. The traffic between two ports flows through the switches only, it is not transmitted to any other port. Failure of a port is isolated and should not affect operation of other ports. Multiple pairs of ports may communicate simultaneously in a fabric. Attribute Max ports Address size Side effect of port failure Mixing different link rates Frame delivery Access to medium Point-to-Point 2 N/A Link fails No In order Dedicated 127 8-bit ALPA Loop fails (until port bypassed) No In order Arbitrated Arbitrated loop Switched fabric ~16777216 (224) 24-bit port ID N/A Yes Not guaranteed Dedicated

[edit] Layers
Fibre Channel does not follow the OSI model layering, but is split similarly into 5 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 and 20 Gbit/s; these protocol flavors are called accordingly 1GFC, 2GFC, 4GFC, 8GFC, 10GFC, 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 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. NL_port is a port on the node used with an FC-AL topology. Also known as Node Loop port. F_port is a port on the switch that connects to a node point-topoint (i.e. connects to an N_port). Also known as Fabric port. An F_port is not loop capable. 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. 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). 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. 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. VE_Port an INCITS T11 addition, FCIP interconnected E-Port/ISL,

i.e. fabrics will merge. VEX_Port a INCITS T11 addition, is a FCIP interconnected EXPort, routing needed via lsan zoning to connect initiator to a target. general (catch-all) types Auto or auto-sensing port found in Cisco switches, can automatically become an E_, TE_, F_, or FL_port as needed. 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. G_port or generic port on a switch can operate as an E_port or F_port. Found on Brocade and McData switches. L_port is the loose term used for any arbitrated loop port, NL_port or FL_port. Also known as Loop port. 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.)

[edit] Optical carrier medium variants

Typical Fibre Channel connectors - modern LC on the left and older SC (typical for 1Gb/s speeds) on the right Fiber Speed Medium Transmitter[4] Distance modality (MByte/s) variant 1310 nm longwave 1600-SM-LC- 0.5 m light[ITS 1] L[ITS 2] 10 km 1600 1490 nm longwave 1600-SM-LZ- 0.5 m light[ITS 1] I[ITS 2] 2 km Single-Mode 800-SM-LC2mFiber L[ITS 4] 10 km 1310 nm longwave 800 light[ITS 3] 800-SM-LC2mI[ITS 4] 1.4 km 400 1310 nm longwave 400-SM-LC2m-

light[ITS 3][ITS 5]

1550 nm longwave light[ITS 8] 200 1310 nm longwave light[ITS 5][ITS 3] 1550 nm longwave light[ITS 8] 100

1310 nm longwave light[ITS 9][ITS 3]

1600

800 Multimode Fiber 850 nm shortwave light[ITS 11][ITS 12] [ITS 13]

400

200

L[ITS 6] 10 km 400-SM-LC2m-4 M[ITS 4] 400-SM-LL2m-2 I[ITS 7] 200-SM-LL2mV[ITS 8] 50 km 200-SM-LC2mL[ITS 6] 10 km 200-SM-LL2m-2 I[ITS 7] 100-SM-LL2mV[ITS 8] 50 km 100-SM-LLL[ITS 10] 2m100-SM-LC10 km L[ITS 6] 100-SM-LL2m-2 I[ITS 10] 1600-M5F-SN- 0.5 m I[ITS 14] m 1600-M5E0.5 m SN-I[ITS 14] m 1600-M5-SN- 0.5 m S[ITS 14] m 1600-M6-SN- 0.5 m S[ITS 15] m 800-M5F-SN- 0.5 m I[ITS 14] m 800-M5E-SN- 0.5 m I[ITS 16] m 800-M5-SN0.5 m S[ITS 16] m 800-M6-SN0.5 m S[ITS 16] m 400-M5F-SN- 0.5 m I[ITS 14] m 400-M5E-SN- 0.5 m I[ITS 16] m 400-M5-SN0.5 m I[ITS 17] m 400-M6-SN0.5 m I[ITS 17] m 200-M5E-SN- 0.5 m I[ITS 16] m 200-M5-SN0.5 m I[ITS 17] m

km km

km

km 125 100 35 15 190 150 50 21 400 380 150 70 500 300

200-M6-SN0.5 m - 150 I[ITS 17] m 100-M5E-SN- 0.5 m - 860 I[ITS 18] m 100-M5-SN0.5 m - 500 I[ITS 19] m 100-M6-SN0.5 m - 300 100 I[ITS 20] m 100-M5-SL2 m - 500 I[ITS 20] m 100-M6-SL2 m - 175 I[ITS 21] m Multimode fiber Fiber Diameter FC media designation OM1 62.5 m M6 OM2 50 m M5 OM3 50 m M5E OM4 50 m M5F Modern Fibre Channel devices support SFP transceiver, mainly with LC fiber connector. Older 1GFC devices used GBIC transceiver, mainly with SC fiber connector.

[edit] Fibre Channel infrastructure

SAN-switch with optical FC connectors installed. Fibre Channel switches can be divided into two classes. These classes are not part of the standard, and the classification of every switch is a marketing decision of the manufacturer: directors offer a high port-count in a modular (slot-based) chassis with no single point of failure (high availability). switches are typically smaller, fixed-configuration (sometimes semimodular), less redundant devices. A fabric consisting entirely of one vendor is considered to be homogeneous. This is often referred to as operating in its "native mode" and allows the vendor to add proprietary features which may not be compliant with the Fibre Channel standard. If multiple switch vendors are used within the same fabric it is heterogeneous, the switches may only achieve adjacency if all switches are placed into their interoperability modes. This is called the "open fabric" mode as each vendor's

switch may have to disable its proprietary features to comply with the Fibre Channel standard. Some switch manufacturers offer a variety of interoperability modes above and beyond the "native" and "open fabric" states. These "native interoperability" modes allow switches to operate in the native mode of another vendor and still maintain some of the proprietary behaviors of both. However, running in native interoperability mode may still disable some proprietary features and can produce fabrics of questionable stability.

[edit] Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters

Fibre Channel HBAs are available for all major open systems, computer architectures, and buses, including PCI and SBus. Some are OS dependent. Each HBA has a unique World Wide Name (WWN), which is similar to an Ethernet MAC address in that it uses an Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) assigned by the IEEE. However, WWNs are longer (8 bytes). There are two types of WWNs on a HBA; a node WWN (WWNN), which can be shared by some or all ports of a device, and a port WWN (WWPN), which is necessarily unique to each port.

[edit] Development tools

When developing and/or troubleshooting the Fibre Channel bus, examination of hardware signals can be very important to find problems. Logic analyzers and bus analyzers are tools which collect, analyze, decode, store signals so people can view the high-speed waveforms at their leisure.

[edit] See also

Arbitrated loop Fibre Channel 8B/10B encoding Fibre Channel electrical interface Fibre Channel fabric Fabric Application Interface Standard Fabric Shortest Path First - routing algorithm Fibre Channel zoning Registered State Change Notification Virtual Storage Area Network Fibre channel frame Fibre Channel Logins (FLOGI) Fibre Channel network protocols Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), contrast with Internet Fibre Channel Protocol (iFCP) Fibre Channel switch Fibre Channel time out values Host Bus Adapter (HBA) Interconnect bottleneck IDE, ATA, SATA, SAS, AoE, SCSI, iSCSI, PCI Express

IP over Fibre Channel (IPFC) List of Fibre Channel standards List of device bandwidths N_Port ID Virtualization Optical interconnect Optical fiber cable Optical communication Parallel optical interface Serial Storage Architecture (SSA) Storage Area Network World Wide Name

[edit] References
1. ^ a b c d e Preston, W. Curtis (2002). Using SANs and NAS. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media. pp. 19-39. ISBN 9780596001537. OCLC 472853124. 2. ^ a b c Riabov, Vladmir V. (2004). "Storage Area Networks (SANs)". In Bidgoli, Hossein. The Internet Encyclopedia. Volume 3, P-Z. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 329-338. ISBN 9780471689973. OCLC 55610291. 3. ^ "Roadmaps". Fibre Channel Industry Association. http://www.fibrechannel.org/roadmaps. Retrieved 2009-11-26. 4. ^ Transmitter values listed are the currently specified values for the variant listed. Some older versions of the FC standards listed slightly different values (however, the values listed here fall within the +/variance allowed). Individual variations for each specification are listed in the references associated with those entries in this table. FC-PH = X3T11 Project 755D; FC-PH-2 = X3T11 Project 901D; FC-PI-4 = INCITS Project 1647-D; FC-PI-5 = INCITS Project 2118D. Copies are availabe from INCITS.

[edit] INCITS Fibre Channel standards

1. ^ a b FC-PI-5 Clause 6.3 2. ^ a b FC-PI-5 Clause 8.1 3. ^ a b c d FC-PI-4 Clause 6.3 4. ^ a b c FC-PI-4 Clause 8.1 5. ^ a b FC-PH-2 lists 1300nm (see clause 6.1 and 8.1) 6. ^ a b c FC-PI clause 8.1 7. ^ a b FC-PH-2 clause 8.1 8. ^ a b c d FC-PI-4 Clause 11 9. ^ FC-PH lists 1300nm (see clause 6.1 and 8.1) 10.^ a b FC-PH Clause 8.1 11.^ FC-PI-5 Clause 6.4 12.^ FC-PI-4 Clause 6.4 13.^ The older FC-PH and FC-PH-2 list 850nm (for 62.5m cables) and 780nm (for 50m cables)(see clause 6.2, 8.2, and 8.3)

14.^ 15.^ 16.^ 17.^ 18.^ 19.^ 20.^ 21.^

abc de

FC-PI-5 Clause 8.2 FC-PI-5 Annex A a b c d e FC-PI-4 Clause 8.2 a b c d FC-PI Clause 8.2 PC-PI-4 Clause 8.2 PC-PI Clause 8.2 a b PC-PI Clause 8.2 FC-PH Annex C and Annex E

[edit] Sources
Clark, T. Designing Storage Area Networks, Addison-Wesley, 1999. ISBN 0-201-61584-3

[edit] Further reading

RFC 2625 - IP and ARP over Fibre Channel RFC 2837 - Definitions of Managed Objects for the Fabric Element in Fibre Channel Standard RFC 3723 - Securing Block Storage Protocols over IP RFC 4044 - Fibre Channel Management MIB RFC 4625 - Fibre Channel Routing Information MIB RFC 4626 - MIB for Fibre Channel's Fabric Shortest Path First (FSPF) Protocol

[edit] External links

Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) INCITS technical committee responsible for FC standards(T11) IBM SAN Survival Guide Introduction to Storage Area Networks Fibre Channel overview Fibre Channel tutorial (UNH-IOL) Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA)

Host adapter
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Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter (64-bit PCI-X card)

SCSI Host Bus Adapter (16-bit ISA card) In computer hardware, a host controller, host adapter, or host bus adapter (HBA) connects a host system (the computer) to other network and storage devices. The terms are primarily used to refer to devices for connecting SCSI, Fibre Channel and eSATA devices, but devices for connecting to IDE, Ethernet, FireWire, USB and other systems may also be called host adapters. Recently, the advent of iSCSI and Fibre Channel over Ethernet has brought about Ethernet HBAs, which are different from Ethernet NICs in that they include TCP Offload Engines. There are also converged HBAs that support both Ethernet and Fibre Channel.

Contents
[hide] 1 SCSI 2 Fibre Channel 3 InfiniBan d 4 ATA 5 SAS and SATA 5.1 eSA TA 6 Mainfram e I/O channels 7 See also 8 Referenc es 9 External links

//<![CDATA[ if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } //]]>[edit] SCSI
Main article: SCSI host adapter A SCSI host adapter connects a SCSI bus to a computer.. The host adapter bridges the physical and logical chasm that separates the SCSI bus from the host computer's internal bus. Modern host adapters contain all the electronics and firmware required to execute SCSI transactions, and often include a BIOS that not only allows the host system to boot from a SCSI device, but also facilitates configuration of the host adapter. Typically a device driver, linked to the operating system, controls the host adapter itself. In a typical parallel SCSI subsystem, each device has assigned to it a unique numerical ID. As a rule, the host adapter appears as SCSI ID 7, which gives it the highest priority on the SCSI bus (priority descends as the SCSI ID descends; on a 16-bit or "wide" bus, ID 8 has the lowest priority, a feature that

maintains compatibility with the priority scheme of the 8-bit or "narrow" bus). The host adapter usually assumes the role of SCSI initiator, in that it issues commands to other SCSI devices. A computer can contain more than one host adapter, which can greatly increase the number of SCSI devices available. Major SCSI adapter manufacturers are HP, ATTO Technology, Promise Technology, Adaptec, and LSI Logic. LSI, Adaptec, and ATTO currently offer PCIe SCSI adapters which fit in new Apple Mac, on Intel PCs, and low-profile motherboards from companies like HP (which now lack SCSI support due to the inclusion of SAS and/or SATA connectivity)..

[edit] Fibre Channel

Today, the term host bus adapter (HBA) is most often used to refer to a Fibre Channel interface card. Fibre Channel HBAs are available for all major open systems, computer architectures, and buses, including PCI and SBus (obsolete today). Each HBA has a unique World Wide Name (WWN), which is similar to an Ethernet MAC address in that it uses an OUI assigned by the IEEE. However, WWNs are longer (8 bytes). There are two types of WWNs on a HBA; a node WWN (WWNN), which is shared by all ports on a host bus adapter, and a port WWN (WWPN), which is unique to each port. There are HBA models of different speeds: 1Gbit/s, 2Gbit/s, 4Gbit/s, 8Gbit/s, 10Gbit/s and 20Gbit/s. The major Fibre Channel HBA manufacturers are QLogic and Emulex. As of mid-2009, these vendors shared approximately 90% of the market.[1][2] Other manufacturers include Agilent, ATTO, Brocade, and LSI.

[edit] InfiniBand
The term host channel adapter (HCA) is usually used to describe InfiniBand interface cards.

[edit] ATA
ATA host adapters are integrated into motherboards of most modern PCs. They are often improperly called disk controllers. The correct term for the component that allows a computer to talk to a peripheral bus is host adapter[citation needed]. A proper disk controller only allows a disk to talk to the same bus.

[edit] SAS and SATA

SAS or serial-attached SCSI is the current connectivity to replace the previous generation parallel-attached SCSI (PAS) devices. Ultra320 was the highest level of parallel SCSI available, but SAS has since replaced it as the highestperforming SCSI technology. SATA is a similar technology from the aspect of connection options. HBAs can be created using a single connector to connect both SAS and SATA devices.

Major SAS/SATA adapter manufacturers are Promise Technologies, Adaptec, HP, QLogic, LSI and ATTO Technology.

[edit] eSATA
External Serial ATA disk enclosures and drives are increasingly common[citation needed] in the consumer computing market, but not all SATA-compatible motherboards and disk controllers include external SATA ports. As such, adapters to connect external SATA devices to ports on an internal SATA bus are commonly available.

[edit] Mainframe I/O channels

Main article: I/O channel In the mainframe field, the terms host adapter or host bus adapter were traditionally not used. A similar goal is achieved since 1960s with a different technique: I/O channel, or simply channel, is a separate processor that can access main memory independently, in parallel with CPU (like later DMA in personal computer field), and that executes its own I/O-dedicated programs when pointed to such by the controlling CPU. Protocols used by I/O channels to communicate with peripheral devices include ESCON and newer FICON.

[edit] See also

Network card Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters Converged Network Adapter (CNA) Host controller interface for USB and FireWire host adapter information

[edit] References
1. ^ Simpson, Dave. "Emulex vs. QLogic: Who's on first?", InfoStor, 200908-14. Market share for Q2 2009 according to a proprietary report from Dell'Oro Group. 2. ^ Mellor, Chris. "HBA market share shenanigans", The Register, 200908-14. Also based on Dell'Oro data.

[edit] External links

Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapter API