Installation guide

Software Operation Manual
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Fibre Channel is a set of standards under the auspices of ANSI (American
National Standards Institute). Fibre Channel combines the best features from
SCSI bus and IP protocols into a single standard interface, including
high-performance data transfer (up to 800 MB per second), low error rates,
multiple connection topologies, scalability, and more. It retains the SCSI
command-set functionality, but uses a Fibre Channel controller instead of a
SCSI controller to provide the network interface for data transmission. In today's
fast-moving computer environments, Fibre Channel is the serial data transfer
protocol choice for high-speed transportation of large volumes of information
between workstation, server, mass storage subsystems, and peripherals.
Physically, the Fibre Channel can be an interconnection of multiple
communication points, called N_Ports. The port itself only manages the
connection between itself and another such end-port which, which could either
be part of a switched network, referred to as a Fabric in FC terminology, or a
point-to-point link. The fundamental elements of a Fibre Channel Network are
Port and node. So a node can be a computer system, storage device, or
Hub/Switch.
This chapter describes the Fibre-specific functions available in the Fibre
channel RAID controller. Optional functions have been implemented for Fibre
channel operation only available in the Web browser-based RAID manager. The
LCD and VT-100 can’t configure the options available for Fibre channel RAID
controller.
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A topology defines the interconnection scheme. It defines the number of devices
that can be connected. Fibre Channel supports three different logical or physical
arrangements (topologies) for connecting the devices into a network:
* Point-to-Point
* Arbitrated Loop (AL)
* Switched (Fabric)
The physical connection between devices varies from one topology to another.
In all of these topologies, a transmitter node in one device sends information to
a receiver node in another device. Fibre Channel networks can use any
combination of point-to-point, arbitrated loop (FC_AL), and switched fabric
topologies to provide a variety of device sharing options.