brief advice/info on fibrechannel?

[supernova87a]

can anyone offer a quick summary about fibrechannel technology, especially with regard to how widespread its use is? Is this a standard hardware when dealing with large disk arrays?

Thanks, I'm reading a proposal and just need some basics!

 

[supernova87a]

Also -- can anyone compare this to gigabit ethernet?

 

[SCSIRAID]

Fiberchannel is mainly used as a storage interconnect. It is found on disk drives and external storage controllers. It supports a loop topology (FC-AL) or a point to point topology (FC). It can be cabled with copper (sucks) or optical cables. Today the state of the art is 2Gb with faster speeds evolving. FC supports IP traffic also but havent seen it penetrate as a communications interface (ethernet much cheaper). Would make sense as a combined storage and IPC transport in small cluster servers. Basic Phy is nearly the same as Gigabit ethernet but protocol is different. Big price premium on HBA's and switches/hubs and other infrastructure. It will be attacked by iSCSI (SCSI over IP) next year.

Today if you are doing external storage controllers for high performance server... FC is the answer. NAS is too slow and iSCSI doesnt exist yet.

 

[ragiepew]

Finber Channel Description
There's a link to an overview of FC, not sure if its what you needed or if its too much information but have a look, maybe it will answer some questions about it.