Glossary
Some terms used in the Fibre Channel industry are defined below. More information is available through the Fibre Channel Industry Association (www.fibrechannel.com), the Storage Area Networking Industry Association (www.snia.org) and the Fibre Channel Consortium (www.iol.unh.edu).
Term | Definition |
fabric | A Fibre Channel switch or two or more Fibre Channel switches interconnected to |
| physically transmit data between any two N_Ports on a switch or switches. |
failover | The substitution of a working system for one which has failed. |
| Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop: A Fibre Channel network in which up to 126 |
| systems and devices are connected in a loop topology, with each transmitter |
| connecting to the receiver of the device to its logical right. The Fibre Channel |
| Arbitrated Loop protocol used for transmission is different from Fibre Channel |
| switched and point to point protocols. Multiple |
| a fabric switch to extend the network. |
firmware | Software stored in |
| Firmware is often responsible for the behavior of a system when it is first switched |
| on. |
F_port | A port in the Fibre Channel fabric where a N_port may attach |
A port in the Fibre Channel fabric where a NL_port may attach in an arbitrated | |
| loop |
initiator device | A component which originates a command |
LED | |
| it. Visible LEDs are used as indicator lights on all sorts of electronic devices. |
LUN | Logical Unit Number: a SCSI or Fibre Channel identifier of a device |
NL port | a port attached to a node in Fibre Channel arbitrated loop or fabric loop |
| configurations |
N_port | a port attached to a node used with point to point or fabric configurations |
SCSI | Small Computer Systems Interface: a |
| |
| disks, floppy disks, |
topology | logical layout of the parts of a computer system or network and their |
| interconnections |
Glossary
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