Overview of Fibre Channel Equipment

• Understanding the features of your Fibre Channel equipment is key when building a robust infrastructure.

• A Fibre Channel network is comprised of cabling, GBICs, hubs, switches, HBAs, and routers.

• Fibre Channel shares much of the same terminology as Ethernet networking, but the functionality of similarly named equipment is not necessarily identical.

Cabling and GBICs

• Copper cabling is almost always terminated with either an HSSDC or DB-9 male connector.

• Multimode optical fiber is terminated using a variety of optical connectors, including SC, LC, and MT-RJ.

• Single-mode fiber is the most expensive media type, but preferable for long distances.

• Single-mode fiber, because of its small diameter (9 m), has the highest transmission speed potential.

• Copper cabling is available in two types: active and passive. Active copper lines provide twice the distance of passive copper lines.

• The HSSDC connector was specifically designed as a Gigabit copper connector, improving density and performance over the DB-9 style connector.

• GBICs are removable transceivers used in all types of Fibre Channel devices, including switches, hubs, and HBAs.

• GBICs offer the option of interfacing with almost all types of connectors.

• A Media Interface Adapter (MIA) converts DB-9 copper connectors to optical SC connectors.

Using Hubs

• Hubs serve as a very basic level for connecting different ports in a network together.

• Hubs can connect up to 127 devices together in an FC-AL loop.

• Simple hubs contain no intelligence, just electrical connections.

• Managed hubs provide a level of error tolerance and management...