Specifications

Escala Tower PL & S, E, T System Hardware
Chapter 3: External Storage and SAN Subsystems 85/116
9es3s1c3.doc
Rev 5.9
02/12/2003
6.3.5.3. Fibre Channel / WAN Bridges
Fibre Channel supports long distance links, but it is often difficult to deploy a private cabling in the
public domain.
Thus proprietary devices has been designed by hardware vendors to interconnect SAN islands using
services from telco operators like ATM or E3/T3. Some of these devices implement real fabric
services or loop emulation, and are fully transparent for the Fibre Channel protocols. Other support
only SCSI over Fibre channel, and behave like FC/SCSI bridges.
Bridge
SAN
ATM, E3/T3,
Internet, ...
WAN
SAN
Site A
Site B
Bridge
In-depth analysis is mandatory before integrating such devices in SAN solutions.