PX2454601-00 C 1-1

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
QLE2360/2362 HBA unless otherwise noted.
■QLE2360 (single channel, half size, full-height bracket, optical media)
■QLE2362 (dual channel, half size, full-height bracket, optical media)
The QLE2360/2362 is a PCI Express to Fibre Channel optical media host adapter.
First, install the QLE2360/2362 HBA according to the directions in the hardware
installation section (see section 2). Please refer to the software driver Readme files
for software installation instructions.
1.2

General Description

Thank you for selecting the QLE2360/2362 Fibre Channel (FC) HBA. The
QLE2360/2362 HBA is an intelligent, high-performance adapter designed for
high-end systems. The intelligence and performance are derived from the ISP2322
FC Controller, making the QLE2360/2362 HBA a leading-edge host adapter. The
ISP2322 combines a powerful RISC processor, a Fibre Channel protocol manager
(FPM) with one or more 2-Gb Fibre Channel transceivers, and a peripheral
component interconnect-extended (PCI-X) local bus interface. The QLE2360/2362
HBA supports all FC peripherals that support private loop direct attach (PLDA) and
fabric loop attach (FLA). Installation of the QLE2360/2362 HBA is quick and easy.
The QLE2360/2362 HBA is a single-slot PCI Express bus expansion board that
interfaces a x4 (four-lane) PCI Express bus to two FC optical media buses. The
QLE2360/2362 HBA supports one- and four-lane operations. One ISP2322 FC
Controller supports two independent fibre channel ports. An Intel 41210 PCI Express
to PCI-X bridge interfaces the ISP’s PCI-X bus to the host’s PCI Express bus.
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.