23.2 An Introduction to Fibre Channel, DWDM, and Extended Fabrics
23.3 Virtual LAN (VLAN)
23.4 Virtual Private Network (VPN)
Networking is a huge subject covering everything from a simple point-to-point serial connection to wide area networks spanning the globe. We can't possibly cover every technology in this one book. In HP-UX arenas, we traditionally focus on local to metropolitan networks. Beyond that, we talk to those guys with their heads stuck down a cabling duct who tells us where to plug in our RJ-45 connector. Our data disappears into that elusive big fluffy-cloud that network engineers love to draw to represent wide area networks. This chapter is not going to go into every facet of network technologies, but simply introduces some of the key technologies used in inter-networking that we, as HP-UX administrators, might not get involved with much. Just because it's the domain of the guy with his head down a cabling duct doesn't mean we shouldn't at least have an appreciation of these technologies. We discuss two typical WAN solutions from a basic theoretical perspective: Frame Relay and ATM. We move the discussion on ATMinto a discussion on Storage Area Networks (SANs). Some would say that a SAN is technically not a network. I would have to disagree . When most people think of a SAN, they think of Fibre Channel. If that is the case, then you must think of Fibre Channel as just another network technology. Currently, the vast numbers of Fibre Channel installations are there to support the SCSI protocol, i.e., to communicate with disk and tape devices. Fibre Channel supports many upper-layer protocols, including IP. We look at how WAN solutions are currently interfacing with SAN solutions in the context of DWDM, and long-haul asynchronous data replication. We conclude with a brief discussion on two other emerging network architectures: Virtual LANs and Virtual Private Networks.
