User`s guide

Introduction 1-3

Table 1-1 describes Switch technical features.

Table 1-1

Storage Switch Technical Features

EATURE

ESCRIPTION

Probing Automatic discovery of devices and auto registration with the

Fabric Simple Name Service (SNS). For private devices, translation

mode is set so that other Fabric attached devices can

communicate with them.

Virtual Channels

The Switch has 8 virtual channels and 4 priority levels supporting

each Switch port. Different virtual channels are automatically

assigned with different priority levels to accommodate various

types of data flow, different communications protocols and user

applications. Virtual channels provide a flexible congestion

management that is also used to separate traffic among:

■ Fibre Channel Link Control frames and Data frames

■

Class 2, Class 3, and Class F frames

■

E_Port, F_Port, and FL_Port destined traffic

Data Field Size The Fibre Channel frame’s data field size is up to 2112 bytes.

Zoning Zoning is a Fabric management service used to create logical

device subsets within a Storage Area Network (SAN) which

enables resource partitioning for management and access control.

Buffer-to-buffer credit Buffer-to-buffer credit for each F_Port can be up to 16 credits. For

the E_Port, buffer-to-buffer credit can be a total of 62 distributed

among all 8 virtual channels.

The FL_Port uses the alternate buffer-to-buffer credit

management model. Each FL_Port may be configured for Open

and supports a BB_Credit of 0 or 1. Up to 16 credits can be made

available when opened. Open transmit credit can be 0 or 1 on a

per-destination NL_Port basis.

continued