Lesson7.Fibre Channel Networking

Lesson 7. Fibre Channel Networking

Fibre Channel is the protocol used for data transfer due to its high speed and provisions for high availability. It is essentially the classic SCSI protocol, mixed with an address-based networking system, so that multiple hosts can be online and request and send data to and from storage devices.

A speed of 2 Gbits per second is used with all Xsan elements, which yields a theoretical limit of 200 MB/s for transmission and reception, for a total of 400 MB/s per cable.

There are two kinds of entities in Fibre Channel networking:

• Initiators are end-user computers and servers that receive data from and transmit data to storage.

• Targets are storage arrays and tape drives that transmit data to and receive data from initiators.