There are some definite advantages to using Fibre Channel over other architectures. Although this is not an all-inclusive list, these are the major advantages: 1.4.1 DistanceHewlett-Packard supports up to 10,000 meters (10km) between the computer (or system) and the peripheral. What this means is that between the computer and the peripheral there can be a distance of 10 kilometers. The next section, " Topologies," will describe this in more detail, however, the distance advantage is an excellent solution for the campus-type environment. 1.4.2 SpeedFibre Channel permits a theoretical speed of up to 4000 Mbps. (As mentioned previously Hewlett Packard supports 1063 Mbps.) Speeds depend greatly on the design of the pieces and parts that are connected within the topology between the computer and the peripheral. Our challenge within the industry now is to determine how to achieve these higher speeds allowed by the Fibre Channel standard. This speaks directly to performance because with the speeds capable with Fibre Channel throughput increases by four or five times over current channels. 1.4.3 Connectivity or ScalabilityComputer system environments today are very limited in the number of devices that can be connected together. They are also limited in that today's configurations do not easily allow the introduction of new technologies, protocols, or even different protocols simultaneously . Fibre Channel addresses these issues by allowing:
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