FIBRE_CHANNEL
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(Redirected from Fibre Channel Protocol)
'Fibre Channel' is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. 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.
It started for use primarily in the supercomputer field, but has become the standard connection type for storage area networks (SAN) in enterprise storage. Despite common connotations of its name, Fibre Channel signaling can run on both twisted pair copper wire and fiber-optic cables.
Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) is the interface protocol of SCSI on the Fibre Channel.
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. 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.
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. Port is usually implemented in a device such as disk storage, an HBA on server or a Fibre Channel switch.
★ 'Point-to-Point' (''FC-P2P''). Two devices are connected back to back. This is the simplest topology, with limited connectivity.
★ '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.
★ 'Switched fabric' (''FC-SW''). All devices or loops of devices are connected to Fibre Channel switches, similar conceptually to modern Ethernet implementations. The switches manage the state of the fabric, providing optimized interconnections.
Fibre Channel is a layered protocol. It consists of 5 layers, namely:
★ 'FC0' The physical layer, which includes cables, fiber optics, connectors, pinouts etc.
★ 'FC1' The data link layer, which implements the 8b/10b encoding and decoding of signals.
★ 'FC2' The network layer, defined by the FC-PI-2 standard, consists of the core of Fibre Channel, and defines the main protocols.
★ 'FC3' The common services layer, a thin layer that could eventually implement functions like encryption or RAID.
★ 'FC4' The Protocol Mapping layer. Layer in which other protocols, such as SCSI, are encapsulated into an information unit for delivery to FC2.
FC0, FC1, and FC2 are also known as FC-PH, the physical layers of fibre channel.
Fibre Channel routers operate up to FC4 level (i.e. they are in fact SCSI routers), switches up to FC2, and hubs on FC0 only.
Fibre Channel products are available at 1 Gbit/s, 2 Gbit/s and 4 Gbit/s. An 8 Gbit/s standard is being developed. A 10 Gbit/s standard has been ratified, but is currently only used to interconnect switches. No 10 Gbit/s initiator or target products are available yet based on that standard. Products based on the 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/s standards should be interoperable, and backward compatible. The 10 Gbit/s standard, however, is not backward compatible with any of the slower speed devices, as it differs considerably on FC1 level (64b/66b encoding instead of 8b/10b encoding).
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'.
★ switch/router ports (used with FC-SW topology only)
★
★ 'F_port' is a port on the switch that connects to a node point-to-point (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'. Note that a switch port may automatically become either an F_port or an FL_port depending on what is connected.
★
★ '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' is a term used for multiple E_ports trunked together to create high bandwidth between switches. Also known as 'Trunking Expansion port'.
★ general (catch-all) types
★
★ 'G_port' or 'generic port' on a switch can operate as an E_port or F_port.
★
★ 'L_port' is the loose term used for any arbitrated loop port, NL_port or FL_port. Also known as 'Loop port'.
Fibre Channel switches are 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 semi-modular), less redundant devices.
Brocade, Cisco and QLogic provide both directors and switches.
If multiple switch vendors are used in the same fabric (i.e. fabric is ''heterogenous''), the fabric will default to "interoperability mode", that is to a pure standarized Fibre Channel protocol. Some proprietary, advanced features may be disabled.
Fibre Channel HBAs are available for all major open systems, computer architectures, and buses, including PCI and SBus (obsolete today). 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 is shared by all ports on a host bus adapter, and a 'port WWN (WWPN)', which is unique to each port. Some Fibre Channel HBA manufacturers are Emulex, LSI, QLogic and ATTO Technology.
;RFCs:
★ RFC 4369 - Definitions of Managed Objects for Internet Fibre Channel Protocol iFCP
★ RFC 4044 - Fibre Channel Management MIB
★ RFC 3723 - Securing Block Storage Protocols over IP
★ RFC 2837 - Definitions of Managed Objects for the Fabric Element in Fibre Channel Standard
★ RFC 2625 - IP and ARP over Fibre Channel (Obsoleted by: RFC 4338)
★ RFC 3831 - Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Fibre Channel (Obsoleted by: RFC 4338)
★ RFC 4338 - Transmission of IPv6, IPv4, and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Packets over Fibre Channel
;Drafts:
★ draft-ietf-imss-fc-rtm-mib-00.txt Fibre-Channel Routing Information MIB
★ draft-ietf-imss-fc-fspf-mib-00.txt MIB for Fibre-Channel's Fabric Shortest Path First Protocol
; Other References:
★ Clark, T. ''Designing Storage Area Networks'', Addison-Wesley, 1999. ISBN 0-201-61584-3
★ Storage Area Network
★ Virtual Storage Area Network
★ Host Bus Adapter (HBA)
★ Fibre Channel zoning
★ IDE, ATA, SATA, SAS, AoE, SCSI, iSCSI, PCI Express
★ Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), IP over Fibre Channel (IPFC)
★ Serial Storage Architecture (SSA)
★ Internet Fibre Channel Protocol (iFCP)
★ List of Fibre Channel standards
★ List of device bandwidths
★ Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA)
★ INCITS technical committee responsible for FC standards(T11)
★ IBM SAN Survival Guide
★ Fibre Channel overview
★ Fibre Channel tutorial (UNH-IOL)
★ Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA)
'Fibre Channel' is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. 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.
It started for use primarily in the supercomputer field, but has become the standard connection type for storage area networks (SAN) in enterprise storage. Despite common connotations of its name, Fibre Channel signaling can run on both twisted pair copper wire and fiber-optic cables.
Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) is the interface protocol of SCSI on the Fibre Channel.
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. 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.
| 'NAME' | 'Line-Rate' (Gbit/s) | 'Throughput ( Mbyte/s) |
| 1GFC | 1.0625 | 100 |
| 2GFC | 2.125 | 200 |
| 4GFC | 4.25 | 400 |
| 8GFC | 8.5 | 800 |
| 10GFC Serial | 10.51875 | 1000 |
| 20GFC | 10.52 | 2000 |
| 10GFC Parallel | 12.75 |
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. Port is usually implemented in a device such as disk storage, an HBA on server or a Fibre Channel switch.
★ 'Point-to-Point' (''FC-P2P''). Two devices are connected back to back. This is the simplest topology, with limited connectivity.
★ '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.
★ 'Switched fabric' (''FC-SW''). All devices or loops of devices are connected to Fibre Channel switches, similar conceptually to modern Ethernet implementations. The switches manage the state of the fabric, providing optimized interconnections.
| Attribute | Point-to-Point | Arbitrated loop | Switched fabric |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max ports | 2 | 127 | ~16777216 (224) |
| Address size | N/A | 8-bit ALPA | 24-bit port ID |
| Side effect of port failure | N/A | Loop fails (until port bypassed) | N/A |
| Mixing different link rates | N/A | No | Yes |
| Frame delivery | In order | In order | Not guaranteed |
| Access to medium | Dedicated | Arbitrated | Dedicated |
Fibre Channel layers
Fibre Channel is a layered protocol. It consists of 5 layers, namely:
★ 'FC0' The physical layer, which includes cables, fiber optics, connectors, pinouts etc.
★ 'FC1' The data link layer, which implements the 8b/10b encoding and decoding of signals.
★ 'FC2' The network layer, defined by the FC-PI-2 standard, consists of the core of Fibre Channel, and defines the main protocols.
★ 'FC3' The common services layer, a thin layer that could eventually implement functions like encryption or RAID.
★ 'FC4' The Protocol Mapping layer. Layer in which other protocols, such as SCSI, are encapsulated into an information unit for delivery to FC2.
FC0, FC1, and FC2 are also known as FC-PH, the physical layers of fibre channel.
Fibre Channel routers operate up to FC4 level (i.e. they are in fact SCSI routers), switches up to FC2, and hubs on FC0 only.
Fibre Channel products are available at 1 Gbit/s, 2 Gbit/s and 4 Gbit/s. An 8 Gbit/s standard is being developed. A 10 Gbit/s standard has been ratified, but is currently only used to interconnect switches. No 10 Gbit/s initiator or target products are available yet based on that standard. Products based on the 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbit/s standards should be interoperable, and backward compatible. The 10 Gbit/s standard, however, is not backward compatible with any of the slower speed devices, as it differs considerably on FC1 level (64b/66b encoding instead of 8b/10b encoding).
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'.
★ switch/router ports (used with FC-SW topology only)
★
★ 'F_port' is a port on the switch that connects to a node point-to-point (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'. Note that a switch port may automatically become either an F_port or an FL_port depending on what is connected.
★
★ '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' is a term used for multiple E_ports trunked together to create high bandwidth between switches. Also known as 'Trunking Expansion port'.
★ general (catch-all) types
★
★ 'G_port' or 'generic port' on a switch can operate as an E_port or F_port.
★
★ 'L_port' is the loose term used for any arbitrated loop port, NL_port or FL_port. Also known as 'Loop port'.
Optical Carrier Medium Variants
| Media Type | Speed (MB/s) | Transmitter | Variant | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single-Mode Fiber | 400 | 1300 nm Longwave Laser | 400-SM-LL-I | 2 m - 2 km |
| 200 | 1550 nm Longwave Laser | 200-SM-LL-V | 2 m - >50 km | |
| 1300 nm Longwave Laser | 200-SM-LL-I | 2 m - 2 km | ||
| 100 | 1550 nm Longwave Laser | 100-SM-LL-V | 2 m - >50 km | |
| 1300 nm Longwave Laser | 100-SM-LL-L | 2 m - 10 km | ||
| 1300 nm Longwave Laser | 100-SM-LL-I | 2 m - 2 km | ||
| Multimode Fiber (50µm) | 400 | 850 nm Shortwave Laser | 400-M5-SN-I | 0.5 m - 150m |
| 200 | 200-M5-SN-I | 0.5 m - 300m | ||
| 100 | 100-M6-SN-I | 0.5 m - 300m | ||
| 100-M6-SL-I | 2 m - 175m |
Fibre Channel Infrastructure
Fibre Channel switches are 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 semi-modular), less redundant devices.
Brocade, Cisco and QLogic provide both directors and switches.
If multiple switch vendors are used in the same fabric (i.e. fabric is ''heterogenous''), the fabric will default to "interoperability mode", that is to a pure standarized Fibre Channel protocol. Some proprietary, advanced features may be disabled.
Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters
Fibre Channel HBAs are available for all major open systems, computer architectures, and buses, including PCI and SBus (obsolete today). 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 is shared by all ports on a host bus adapter, and a 'port WWN (WWPN)', which is unique to each port. Some Fibre Channel HBA manufacturers are Emulex, LSI, QLogic and ATTO Technology.
Fibre Channel References
;RFCs:
★ RFC 4369 - Definitions of Managed Objects for Internet Fibre Channel Protocol iFCP
★ RFC 4044 - Fibre Channel Management MIB
★ RFC 3723 - Securing Block Storage Protocols over IP
★ RFC 2837 - Definitions of Managed Objects for the Fabric Element in Fibre Channel Standard
★ RFC 2625 - IP and ARP over Fibre Channel (Obsoleted by: RFC 4338)
★ RFC 3831 - Transmission of IPv6 Packets over Fibre Channel (Obsoleted by: RFC 4338)
★ RFC 4338 - Transmission of IPv6, IPv4, and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Packets over Fibre Channel
;Drafts:
★ draft-ietf-imss-fc-rtm-mib-00.txt Fibre-Channel Routing Information MIB
★ draft-ietf-imss-fc-fspf-mib-00.txt MIB for Fibre-Channel's Fabric Shortest Path First Protocol
; Other References:
★ Clark, T. ''Designing Storage Area Networks'', Addison-Wesley, 1999. ISBN 0-201-61584-3
See also
★ Storage Area Network
★ Virtual Storage Area Network
★ Host Bus Adapter (HBA)
★ Fibre Channel zoning
★ IDE, ATA, SATA, SAS, AoE, SCSI, iSCSI, PCI Express
★ Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), IP over Fibre Channel (IPFC)
★ Serial Storage Architecture (SSA)
★ Internet Fibre Channel Protocol (iFCP)
★ List of Fibre Channel standards
★ List of device bandwidths
External links
★ Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA)
★ INCITS technical committee responsible for FC standards(T11)
★ IBM SAN Survival Guide
★ Fibre Channel overview
★ Fibre Channel tutorial (UNH-IOL)
★ Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA)
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