Fibre Channel Components
Fibre Channel Terminology
Fibre Channel Ports
• In Fibre Channel terms, ports are more than just
physical interfaces
• Ports are intelligent interfaces to the Fibre
Channel network
• Ports are responsible for controlling and
managing Fibre Channel operations:
– Transmitting and receiving data
– Initializing an Arbitrated Loop
– Logging in to a Switched Fabric
• Ports each have different logical characteristics
– Physically they are the same
In Fibre Channel terminology, ports are more than just physical interfaces,
they are intelligent interfaces to the Fibre Channel network:
In addition to transmitting and receiving data, ports are responsible for
actively controlling and managing Fibre Channel operations.
These operations include, for example, initializing an arbitrated loop and
logging in to a switched fabric.
Fibre Channel hubs, although they obviously have physical ports, do not
have intelligent ports—the ports on a hub do not actively participate in
the operation of the network.
The ports are responsible for the Fibre Channel operations. They will acquire
an address. When a port joins a loop it will get an arbitrated loop physical
address. When a port joins a fabric it will do a fabric login to get an FC_ID. It
will then be responsible for transmitting and receiving data, for framing and for
flow control.