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.
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's data center guru talks direction, strategy
Nov. 02, 2009
As a 13 year Cisco veteran, John McCool, senior vice president and General Manager of Cisco's Data Center Switching and Services Group, has seen a boatload of change.
Emulex ships converged network adapter
Oct. 28, 2009
Emulex this week shipped a 10 Gigabit Ethernet server adapter that performs all sorts of functions through a single chip.
EMC, NetApp roll out Fibre Channel over Ethernet products
Oct. 17, 2008
EMC and NetApp pushed new Fibre Channel over Ethernet products at Storage Networking World in Dallas this week
Watch out Cisco: Here comes Brocade/Foundry
Jul. 22, 2008
Brocade's proposed $3 billion acquisition of Foundry Networks this week would create a stronger data center competitor to Cisco while raising the stakes even higher for other Ethernet switch companies.
Brocade's Foundry buy will boost Fibre Channel over Ethernet market
Jul. 22, 2008
Brocade's purchase of Foundry will help it penetrate the Fibre Channel over Ethernet market.
FCoE: the evolutionary approach to SAN expansion
Apr. 22, 2008
Ever since the emergence of Fibre Channel SANs in the late 1990s, enterprise IT managers have maintained two sets of networks, one for storage I/O traffic and the other for data network traffic. But system consolidation ...
Remaking the data center
Sep. 17, 2009
A major transformation is sweeping over data center switching. Over the next few years the old switching equipment needs to be replaced with faster and more flexible switches.
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