CHAPT ER
6-1
Cisco ONS 15454 Reference Manual, R7.0
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6
Storage Access Networking Cards
Note The terms "Unidirectional Path Switched Ring" and "UPSR" may appear in Cisco literature. These terms
do not refer to using Cisco ONS 15xxx products in a unidirectional path switched ring configuration.
Rather, these terms, as well as "Path Protected Mesh Network" and "PPMN," refer generally to Cisco's
path protection feature, which may be used in any topological network configuration. Cisco does not
recommend using its path protection feature in any particular topological network configuration.
The Fibre Channel Multirate 4-Port (FC_MR-4) card is a 1.0625- or 2.125-Gbps Fibre Channel/fiber
connectivity (FICON) card that integrates non-SONET framed protocols into a SONET time-division
multiplexing (TDM) platform through virtually concatenated payloads. For installation and step-by-step
circuit configuration procedures, refer to the Cisco ONS 15454 Procedure Guide.
Chapter topics include:
• 6.1 FC_MR-4 Card Overview, page 6-1
• 6.2 FC_MR-4 Card Modes, page 6-4
• 6.3 FC_MR-4 Card Application, page 6-7
• 6.4 FC_MR-4 Card GBICs, page 6-8

6.1 FC_MR-4 Card Overview

Note For hardware specifications, see the “A.8.1 FC_MR-4 Card Specifications” section on page A-47.
The FC_MR-4 card uses pluggable Gigabit Interface Converters (GBICs) to transport
non-SONET/SDH-framed, block-coded protocols over SONET/SDH. The FC_MR-4 enables four client
Fibre Channel (FC) ports to be transported over SONET/SDH, encapsulating the frames using the ITU-T
generic framing procedure (GFP) format and mapping them into either T1X1 G.707-based virtual
concatenated (VCAT) payloads or standard contiguously concatenated SONET payloads. The FC_MR-4
card has the following features:
• Four FICON ports operating at 1 Gbps or 2 Gbps
–
All four ports can be operational at any time due to subrate support
–
Advanced distance extension capability (buffer-to-buffer credit spoofing)
• Pluggable GBIC optics