Communicator e3000 MPE/iX Release 7.5 (Software Release C.75.00) (30216-90336)

Chapter 4
Fibre Channel Device and Adapter Support on HP e 3000 Systems
Fibre Channel Device Adapter Support
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effectively used by the host system. SCSI-FC router can be viewed more as a quick and easier way of allowing
fibre channel connectivity for HP e3000 systems. But this will not be able to meet the fibre channel storage
needs of HP e3000 customers for long.
Figure 4-2 Accessing FC Device through FC Device Adapter
In order to allow HP e3000 customers to take full advantage of FC storage devices and also ease maintenance
issues, MPE/iX 7.5 introduces the support of native Fibre Channel adapter cards. These adapter cards can be
used in the PCI I/O slots of N/A-Class systems and can connect directly to the FC devices through an FC
cable, thus providing higher I/O performance and simpler connectivity.
It is to be noted that fibre channel device adapter cards are supported only on N-Class and A-Class HP e3000
systems. Other HP e3000 models like 99x and 9x9 systems would continue to need the SCSI-FC router for
connecting to fibre channel devices.
Benefits to Customers
The introduction of support for FC device adapter cards brings the following benefits to HP e3000 customers:
• Simplified connectivity to fibre channel devices
• Improved fibre channel I/O performance
• Reduced maintenance issues
• Ability to access the entire LUN-range of fibre channel devices
• Lower cost of ownership
Fibre Channel Adapter Card Supported
The Fibre Channel Device Adapter Card available for N- and A-Class Systems is:
• A6795A — PCI 4X 2Gbps Single Port Fibre Channel Adapter
This adapter card utilizes the Tachyon XL2 chip, the newest member of the Tachyon family product suite of
Fibre Channel interface controllers. It can operate at 2 Gigabits per second speed in a 4x PCI slot and
presents one fibre channel port to the outside world. It can be plugged into any of the PCI Bus slots on N- and
A-Class HP e3000 systems.
Fibre Channel Concepts
Fibre Channel Basics
A fibre channel environment or network consists of host systems and devices connected together by an
interconnection topology. In fibre channel terminology, both host systems and devices are referred to as nodes.
Each node is a source or destination of information for one or more other nodes. Each node requires one or
FC cable
HP e3000
FC
Device