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Fibre
Channel Interface
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The Fibre Channel interface brings the speed and flexibility of the
Fibre Channel protocol to a RAM-SAN. An onboard embedded
processor deals directly with all interface overhead, and allows
maximum Fibre Channel bandwidth to be achieved with all protocols and
topologies. The Fibre Channel interface can be configured in an
arbitrated loop or in a switched network topology ideal for storage
area networks.
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The
Fibre Channel Link
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The Fibre Channel standard was developed to
provide a high performance communication link with a simple but expandable protocol.
The Fibre Channel physical link is a proven and highly reliable technology with
many vendors manufacturing compatible devices. The gigabit optical interconnect is
widely accepted and is readily available at a reasonable cost. The Fibre Channel
fabric standard can be incorporated with multiple levels of sophistication: from a simple
basic data frame with a few control bytes to a multi-layered protocol. Time critical
applications use the simpler protocol with the high level protocols reserved for
multi-computer technology. High performance and flexibility are the cornerstones of
the Fibre Channel protocol.
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Fibre
Channel Interface Features
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The FC interface was designed for speed.
Industry standard Fibre Channel hardware allows the FC interface to transfer data
at 100 MB/sec full or half-duplex giving the FC interface a maximum bandwidth of
200MB/sec. The FC interface's dual port memory structure provides for continuous
data flow and protocol encoding/decoding. All Fibre Channel exception handling is
supported including packet retransmission. An embedded Power PC processor is
responsible for supporting Fibre Channel upper-level protocols with flow control.
Likewise, the FC interface can be customized to support various proprietary protocols.
In summary, the FC interface is well suited to achieve the performance and the
flexibility that the Fibre Channel protocol offers.
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