Section 1
Introduction
1.1
How to Use this Guide
The SANblade QLogic host bus adapters (HBAs) supported in this document are described in the following paragraphs; they are collectively referred to as the QLA23xx HBA unless otherwise noted. These HBAs are all low-profile, 64-bit PCI to Fibre Channel optical media.
■QLA2340 (single channel, full-height bracket)
■QLA2340L (single channel, low-profile bracket)
■QLA2342 (dual channel, full-height bracket)
■QLA2342L (dual channel, low-profile bracket)
First, install the QLA23xx HBA according to the directions in the appropriate hardware installation section. Secondly, install the software driver according to the directions in the appropriate section.
1.2
General Description
Thank you for selecting the QLA23xx Fibre Channel (FC) HBA. The QLA23xx HBA is an intelligent, high-performance, DMA bus master host adapter designed for high-end systems. The intelligence and performance are derived from the ISP23xx chips, making the QLA23xx HBA a leading-edge host adapter. The ISP23xx combines a powerful RISC processor, a Fibre Channel protocol manager (FPM) with one 2-Gb Fibre Channel transceiver, and a peripheral component interconnect-extended (PCI-X) local bus interface in a single-chip solution. The QLA23xx HBA supports all FC peripherals that support private loop direct attach (PLDA) and fabric loop attach (FLA). Installation of the QLA23xx HBA is quick and easy.
1.3
What is Fibre Channel?
Fibre Channel technology is outlined in the SCSI-3 Fibre Channel Protocol (SCSI-FCP) standard. Fibre Channel is a high-speed data transport technology used for mass storage and networking. It connects mainframes, super computers, workstations, storage devices, and servers.
Fibre Channel supports data transfer rates up to 200 MBps half-duplex and
400MBps full-duplex on copper and optical interfaces. The QLA23xx HBAs use a multimode optical interface for intermediate distances (less than 500 meters at the data rate of 1 Gbps; less than 300 meters at the data rate of 2 Gbps).
