Fibre Channel
Fibre Channel is a technology designed for very high performance low-latency data transfer among various types of devices, as defined by a family of ANSI standards developed by INCITS T11.
Data rates of 100, 200, 400, and 1200M-bytes/sec are defined for fiber optic links up to 50 km and for copper links.
The links are full duplex, providing total bandwidth double the link rate.
Topologies include point-to-point, shared loop, and switched. Fibre Channel is mapped to several protocol layers, the most popular ones being the storage protocols SCSI (FCP) and ESCON (FICON).
Fibre Channel is the principal technology used to implement Storage Area Networks (SANs).
Thanks to Robert Snively for this updated definition.
Additional resources
Fibre Channel Industry Association
Fibre Channel Tutorial
Fibre Channel projects
Details on various specifications from T11.
Storage Research Center
Latest news, opinion and analysis from Network World.
Breaking Fibre Channel news
Fibre Channel over Ethernet a hot topic, so hurry up and wait
May. 21, 2009
Fibre Channel over Ethernet is considered an initial step towards a converged data center switching fabric, and it was a hot topic at this week's Interop conference.
Cisco says it's not eating its SAN young; Sprint divesting iDEN
Jun. 15, 2009
Cisco says it's not eating its SAN young; Sprint divesting iDEN
Brocade: Well positioned with emerging technologies
Jun. 15, 2009
Brocade is a networking company, nothing more, nothing less. "We don't make phones, we don't make servers, we don't build furniture," says Dave Stevens, the company's CTO.
Cisco says it's not eating its SAN young
Jun. 12, 2009
Cisco says the dropoff in its FibreChannel SAN revenue and market share in Q1 is attributable to three factors: an early stage migration to 8Gbps; a lower cost migration than rival Brocade; and exposure to financial ...
Emulex rejects Broadcom's hostile takeover bid
May. 04, 2009
Emulex has rejected a hostile takeover bid from Broadcom for the second time this year, saying a $764 million offer "significantly undervalues" the company.
Emulex unveils management framework, new architecture and secure HBAs
Feb. 26, 2009
Emulex last week introduced a variety of new tools to manage converged and Fibre Channel networks.
Fibre Channel over Ethernet: allowing the big data-center synch
Jan. 26, 2009
With Fibre Channel over Ethernet now a reality, enterprises are readying plans to converge data and storage networks.
Cisco Fibre Channel share plummets
Jun. 15, 2009
Cisco's share in Fibre Channel networking fell 45% in the 1st quarter of this year, according to a Dell'Oro report, a move Dell'Oro says may have come about because of channel conflict.
Brocade ups FCoE stakes
Apr. 14, 2009
Last week at Storage Networking World Brocade stepped right into the middle of the Fibre Channel over Ethernet fray with the announcement of two new converged network adapters and a top-of-the rack FCoE switch. Since ...
Brocade switch joins emerging storage, network standards
Apr. 08, 2009
Brocade is gearing up for the Fibre Channel over Ethernet era with a new switch and adapters, but says not to expect mass adoption of FCoE until 2011.
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