Fibre Channel

Fibre Channel
Layer 4. Protocol mapping
LUN masking
Layer 3. Common services
Layer 2. Network
Fibre Channel fabric
Fibre Channel zoning
Registered state change notification
Layer 1. Data link
Fibre Channel 8b/10b encoding
Layer 0. Physical

Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless[1] delivery of raw block data.[2] Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers[3][4] in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data centers.

Fibre Channel networks form a switched fabric because the switches in a network operate in unison as one big switch. Fibre Channel typically runs on optical fiber cables within and between data centers, but can also run on copper cabling.[3][4] Supported data rates include 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 gigabit per second resulting from improvements in successive technology generations. The industry now notates this as Gigabit Fibre Channel (GFC).

There are various upper-level protocols for Fibre Channel, including two for block storage. Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) is a protocol that transports SCSI commands over Fibre Channel networks.[3][4] FICON is a protocol that transports ESCON commands, used by IBM mainframe computers, over Fibre Channel. Fibre Channel can be used to transport data from storage systems that use solid-state flash memory storage medium by transporting NVMe protocol commands.

  1. ^ "Fibre Channel Performance: Congestion, Slow Drain, and Over Utilization, Oh My!" (PDF). Fibre Channel Industry Association. February 6, 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-03-01. Retrieved 2018-02-28.
  2. ^ "Fibre Channel Basics" (PDF). Apple. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-08-29. Retrieved 2018-03-22.
  3. ^ a b c Preston, W. Curtis (2002). "Fibre Channel Architecture". Using SANs and NAS. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media. pp. 19–39. ISBN 978-0-596-00153-7. OCLC 472853124.
  4. ^ a b c Riabov, Vladmir V. (2004). "Storage Area Networks (SANs)". In Bidgoli, Hossein (ed.). The Internet Encyclopedia. Volume 3, P-Z. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 329–338. ISBN 978-0-471-68997-3. OCLC 55610291.

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