HP Fibre Channel Fabric Migration Guide

Glossary 21
Glossary
A
AL Boot - the process of booting from a
device that is on the same arbitrated loop as
the host adapter. No switch is required.
Arbitrated Loop - a Fibre Channel
topology where information is routed around
the loop from port to port until it arrives at
its destination. This is a private loop
configuration.
Area - the second field of the 3-byte address
assigned to an attached N_Port in a Fabric
configuration. The Area is generally
associated with an F/FL port on a switch.
C
Cascading - an interconnection of
individual switches used to create larger
Fabric configurations.
D
DFA (Direct Fabric Attachment) - a
configuration in which both the host initiator
and the target device are attached to the
same switch (N_Port to F_Port).
Domain - the first field of the 3-byte address
assigned to an attached N_Port in a Fabric
configuration. The domain is generally
associated with an instance of the switch.
F
Fabric - a term used to describe an
interconnection of Fibre Channel host ports,
device ports and switch ports where frames
from a source N_Port are routed through a
switch (Fabric) to a destination N_Port based
on the frame’s destination address.
Fabric Boot - the process of booting from a
device that is accessed by a Fibre Channel
switch.
Fabric Device Addressing - the assigning
of addresses to attached N_Ports in the
Fabric. The address is determined by the
switch and is comprised of three fields:
Domain, Area, and Port.
FC-FLA (Fibre Channel Fabric Loop Attach)
- the ANSI technical report that describes
the rules by which NL_Ports and FL_Ports
communicate with each other.
FC-AL - (Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop) -
the ANSI standard that describes how
several Fibre Channel ports can share a
single communication ring.
F_Port (Fabric Port) - a port within the
Fabric used to route frames from N_Port to
N_Port. The F_Port is the access point to a
Fibre Channel switch.
FC-SW (Fibre Channel Switch Fabric) - the
standard that describes how Fibre Channel
switches are required to behave.
FC-GS - (Fibre Channel Generic Service) -
the ANSI standard that describes such
services as the directory service that allows
a host to identify which storage devices are
available and their addresses.
FL_Port - an F_Port that is attached to the
Fabric in a loop configuration.