Fibre-channel host attachments

Fibre-channel technology supports increased performance, scalability, availability, and distance for attaching storage subsystems to network servers. Fibre-channel technology supports applications that require large amounts of disk storage that is shared by two or more servers. You can use fibre-channel to connect large amounts of disk storage to a server or cluster of servers.

The DS6000™ series provides a fibre-channel connection when you install a fibre-channel SFP (shortwave or longwave) in the DS6800 model.

Fibre-channel architecture provides a variety of communication protocols on the storage server. The servers that are interconnected are referred to as nodes. Each node has one or more ports.

A storage unit is a node in a fibre-channel network. Each port on a DS6800 fibre-channel SFP is a fibre-channel port. A host is also a node in a fibre-channel network. Each port attaches to a serial-transmission medium that provides duplex communication with the node at the other end of the medium.

There are three basic topologies supported by fibre-channel interconnection architecture:

Point-to-point

You can use the point-to-point topology to interconnect ports directly.

Switched fabric

The switched-fabric topology provides the necessary switching functions to support communication between multiple nodes. You can use a fabric to support communication between multiple nodes.

Arbitrated loop

A Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) is a ring topology where two or more ports can be interconnected. You can use the FC-AL to interconnect up to 127 hosts on a loop. An arbitrated loop may be connected to a fabric, known as a public loop. When the loop is not connected to a fabric, it is referred to as a private loop.