Specifications

3
3-6
McDATA Products in a SAN Environment - Planning Manual
Planning Considerations for Fibre Channel Topologies
Public Versus Private
Devices
Sphereon 4000-series fabric switches support connection of public
and private arbitrated loop devices as follows:
Public device - A loop device that can transmit a fabric login
(FLOGI) command to the switch, receive acknowledgement from
the switch’s login server, register with the switch’s name server,
and communicate with fabric-attached devices is a public device.
The switches provide loop connectivity up to the Fibre Channel
architectural limit of 127 devices per Fibre Channel port when
configured as an FL_Port. Each FL_Port is assigned one arbitrated
loop physical address (AL_PA), leaving 126 AL_PAs per port
available for device connections. Up to 32 public devices can be
connected to each of the FL_Ports. As shown in Figure 3-3, server
S
2
is a public loop device connected to a Sphereon 4500 Fabric
Switch and can communicate with fabric-attached device D
1
.
Figure 3-3 Public Device Connectivity
Public devices support normal fabric operational requirements,
such as fabric busy and reject conditions, frame multiplexing, and
frame delivery order.