6.1 Future Enhancements

Fibre Channel is evolving rapidly and new elements are constantly being defined. These new elements will produce a more powerful architecture to support mass storage.

Most of the work thus far in defining the Fibre Channel standards has been in the Fibre Channel physical standard (FC-PH). Although there will be more work done in this area, the larger amount of work in defining standards will be done in the FC-3 and FC-4 levels.

6.1.1 What Lies Ahead

6.1.1.1 Faster Fiber Rates.

The faster Fibre Channel rates of 2-plus Gbps and 4-plus Gbps are still theoretical. When implemented, however, they could greatly increase throughput. Since Hewlett-Packard supports Fibre Channel as part of it's future technology, it is continuing to produce chips and other components to support the faster rates of data transfer.

6.1.1.2 Hunt Groups

More and better definitions of hunt groups and how they will or should operate . Hunt groups could increase throughput by sending frames to an alternate port on a node, eliminating the possibility of a busy N_Port blocking communication.

6.1.1.3 Multicast Groups

As discussed in the FC-3: Common Services section of Chapter 2, the FC-3 level allows a single information unit to be transmitted to multiple N_Ports on a node. Multicast groups then could increase throughput by efficiently replicating frames to be sent to multiple N_Ports. This is roughly equivalent to a person using broadcast voice mail or email distribution lists.

6.1.1.4 Classes of Service

Newer classes of service will be added. They may address voice or video, which will offer new communication possibilities while placing new demands on the architecture.

6.1.1.5 Other Possible Enhancements

Other enhancements may address problems in the FC-AL standard or may come in the area of network management improvement. The following list includes some of the other possible improvements.

• Improved flow control

• Low-level error recovery

• Spatial reuse ” more than one conversation on the loop at one time

• Full frame buffering

• Network management

  - identification of topology

  - discovery of topology when loop configuration changes

• Faster ULP error recovery

• Low-cost switching hubs

Even though these enhancements may be coming, Hewlett-Packard is only committed to the currently defined standards.