SimpleTech ZeusIOPS manual FCP Function Levels, FCP Level Description

The Fibre Channel standard is structured into FCP Function Levels, where “FCP” is “Fibre Channel Protocol”. There is a hierarchy of function levels, written FC-0 to FC-4, and on top of those lies the Upper Level Protocols or ULP. Table 32 summarizes each FCP level.

	Table 32. FCP Function Levels
FCP Level	Description
FC-0	This level defines the cable, transceivers, and connector. For example, the ZeusIOPS
	3.5-inch Fibre Channel SSD uses copper cable and a 40-Pin SCA-2 connector.
	This level defines the 8B/10B encoding of the basic word in the data stream. This
FC-1	encoding consists of four characters. A word contains data or contains an ordered set
	that serves as control information.
FC-2	This level defines how the words are structured in frames, sequences, exchanges and
	packets.
	This level defines the common services. All communication through a node passes
FC-3	through the common service protocol level, allowing networking features such as
	“stripping” data, and “multicasting” to many nodes.
FC-4	Maps the lower protocols to the ULPs.
ULP	This is the protocol that is transported by the Fibre Channel. For example, the
	ZeusIOPS SSD has FCP-SCSI as its ULP.

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