Fibre Channel Primer

19 Chapter 3: Fibre Channel Overview
l Movie animation and post-production projects to reduce time to
market
l Quick-response network for imaging applications
Fibre Channel was developed by the computer industry for IT
applications. Its development focused on removing the performance
barriers of legacy LANs. Among the performance-enhancing features
of Fibre Channel for networking are:
l Confirmed delivery, enhancing the reliability of the protocol stack
or the option of bypassing the protocol stack for increased
performance.
l Complete support for traditional network self-discovery. Full
support of ARP, RARP, and other self-discovery protocols.
l Support for dedicated bandwidth point-to-point circuits, shared
bandwidth loop circuits, or scalable bandwidth switched circuits.
l True connection service or fractional bandwidth, connection-
oriented virtual circuits to guarantee quality of service for critical
backups or other operations.
l The option of real circuits or virtual circuits.
l Instant circuit setup time measured in microseconds using hardware
enhanced Fibre Channel protocols.
l Extremely low-latency connection and connectionless service.
l Automatic self-discovery and configuration of Fibre Channel
topologies.
l Full support for time synchronous applications like video, using
fractional bandwidth virtual circuits.
l Efficient, high-bandwidth, low-latency transfers using variable
length (0-2KB) frames. Highly effective for protocol frames of
less than 100 bytes, as well as bulk data transfers using the
maximum frame size.
In the early days, a single computer vendor provided a proprietary
solution to a single buyer, the data processing manager. With the
minicomputer the process changed, and departments bought their own
computing solution. The market transitioned to multiple solutions
sold to multiple buyers, resulting in incompatible, proprietary data
processing systems. Over time, users realized they needed to combine