System information

Glossary
g-21
Glossary
fast/wide small
computer system
interface
Fast/wide SCSI. Fast and wide are relative terms in comparing
previous SCSI standards and products. Fast, as defined in SCSI-2,
refers to a maximum synchronous transfer rate of 10 MHz. Wide
refers to a data path of 16 bits.
fault tolerance The ability of a system to respond gracefully to an unexpected
hardware or software failure. There are many levels of fault
tolerance, the lowest being the ability to continue operation in the
event of a power failure. Many fault-tolerant computer systems
mirror all operations.
FC See Fibre Channel.
FC-0 The Fibre Channel layer that describes the physical link between two
ports, including the transmission media, transmitter and receiver
circuitry, and interfaces (D). This consists of a pair of either optical
fiber or electrical cables (link media) along with transceiver circuitry
which work together to convert a stream of bits at one end of the link
to a stream of bits at the other end.
FC-1 Middle layer of the Fibre Channel physical and signaling interface
(FC-PH) standard, defining the 8B/10B encoding/decoding and
transmission protocol.
FC-2 The Fibre Channel layer that specifies the signaling protocol, rules,
and mechanisms required to transfer data blocks. The FC-2 layer is
very complex and provides different classes of service, packetization,
sequencing, error detection, segmentation, and reassembly of
transmitted data (D).
FC-3 The Fibre Channel layer that provides a set of services common
across multiple node ports (N_Ports) of a Fibre Channel node. The
services are not commonly used and are essentially reserved for Fibre
Channel architecture expansion (D).
FC-4 The Fibre Channel layer that provides mapping of Fibre Channel
capabilities to upper level protocols (ULP), including Internet
protocol (IP) and small computer system interface (SCSI) (D).
FCA See Fibre Channel Association.
FC-AL See Fibre Channel arbitrated loop.
FC adapter Fibre Channel adapter. See host bus adapter.