Fibre Channel
Fibre Channel, or FC is an architecture (and a set of protocols to attach disk drives to computers, like in a Storage Area Network. Networks today are done with 4 GBit/s and 8 GBit/s over fiberglass cables. This is enough to support data transfer rates of up to 800 MBit/s. Fibrechannel permits connecting the same disk subsystem to several computers. It typically uses the SCSI command set.
Basically, there are two topologies (ways to do this):
- Arbitrated Loop: All the devices are connected in a logical bus topology (shown on the right in the picture above). The devices can be connected in a ring much like Token Ring. This avoids using the Fibre Channel Switches, which are very expensive.
- Fabric All devices are connected to Fibre Channel Switches. This is similar to Ethernet. It is more expensive though, because Switches that support Fibre Channel are very expensive.
Fibre Channel Media
Topology diagram of a Fibre Channel point-to-point connection
Fibre Channel is a layered technology that starts at the physical layer and progresses through the protocols to the upper level protocols like SCSI and SBCCS.
A Port has a physical structure as well as logical or virtual structure. This diagram shows how a virtual port may have multiple physical ports and vice versa.
Fibre Channel predominantly uses the SFP module with the LC connector and duplex cabling, but 128GFC uses the QSFP28 module and the MPO connectors and ribbon cabling.
The SFP-DD module is used in high-density applications that need to double the throughput of traditional SFP ports.
The Fibre Channel SAN connects servers to storage via Fibre Channel switches.
Fibre Channel director with SFP+ modules and LC optical fiber connectors with Optical Multimode 3 (OM3) fiber (aqua).
Dual port 8Gb FC host bus adapter card.
Dual port 16Gb FC host bus adapter card.
