Symantec 5.1 manual the Hardware Abstraction Layer HAL, the CommandCentral Storage Console

	CommandCentral Glossary 41
GBIC	Gigabit interface converter. A widely used transceiver module for Fibre Channel.
	A GBIC is modular and hot-swappable and can be either copper or optical.
generic device	A disk or tape device. When generic storage devices are visible to a host running
	the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL), the CommandCentral Storage Console
	displays the correct object type.
generic group	A user-defined collection of switches, hosts, and storage devices. The Group Builder
	tool is used to create and modify generic groups. See also group, object dependency
	group.
group	A class or collection of storage objects. Groups are useful for a number of different
	purposes, for example scoping reports and views to encompass a set of objects
	with similar attributes. CommandCentral Storage supports two types of groups:
	generic groups, which are defined by users, and object dependency groups, which
	are defined automatically to track volumes and file systems having dependencies
	on specific applications.
GS explorer	An explorer that uses the Fibre Channel Common Transport (CT) protocol to
	discover switches in-band over Fibre Channel, obtain switch characteristics, and
	explore port connectivity. Prior to CommandCentral Storage version 5.x, the GS
	explorer was known as the MGEX explorer.

guest operating system An operating system that is installed on a virtual machine. See also managed virtual host.

hard zoning	A fabric zoning method in which a Fibre Channel switch actively blocks access to
	zone members from any objects outside the zone. Because the active blocking
	takes place at the level of ports on the switch, hard zoning is also referred to as
	switch port zoning. In hard zoning, each switch uses a routing table to determine
	whether data is allowed to flow across a connection. See also soft zoning.
HAL (hardware	A component that performs device discovery and management for storage
abstraction layer)	applications and devices. HAL maintains a real-time topology of the storage
	network and interacts directly with switches and storage arrays to control access
	to storage resources. HAL extends the functionality offered in previous releases
	of CommandCentral Storage, providing the ability to monitor and manage a large
	number of storage devices.
HBA	Host bus adapter. An interface between a server or workstation bus and a Fibre
	Channel network.
HBA port group	A group of HBA ports for which a single LUN masking operation applies to each
	port in the group. In CommandCentral Storage, you can create HBA port groups
	using the Console. For EMC EVA and CLARiiON arrays, the term host may be used
	to refer to an HBA port group. For NetApp devices, the term initiator group is
	used. See also LUN masking.
host bus adapter	See HBA.