Vixel 335 manual Fibre Channel - Arbitrated Loop, InSpeed Technology, Introduction

Vixel Model 335 Installation & Configuration Guide CHAPTER 1 Introduction

Fibre Channel - Arbitrated Loop

The Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) is an ANSI standard (X3T11) designed to provide shared bandwidth over low-cost media. Early adopters primarily use the SCSI protocol transported over Fibre Channel for distributed server and storage cluster applications. The switch is a central point of interconnect designed to maintain a fault- tolerant physical loop topology.

InSpeed™ Technology

Vixel’s InSpeed™ technology enables the switch’s router to properly utilize the switch core in sending data from one port to another. This process allows for multiple, simultaneous conversations between ports — effectively multiplying bandwidth. Using an advanced switching architecture that couples a non-blocking crossbar switch with unique port logic and per-port SERDES', the InSpeed™ technology creates the industry’s highest-density Fibre Channel switch.

This technology provides the same performance as switches that support FC-SW2, while solving the latency problems associated with large FC-AL loops. During initialization, InSpeed™ connects all devices together in a standard FC-AL2 loop. Upon completion of the initialization process, InSpeed™ transitions to switching mode. When arbitration is attempted, InSpeed™ analyzes connections and routes traffic directly to the destination port.

The InSpeed™ switch is bufferless and operates on only the lower seven bits of the full Fabric address field. Aside from the time it takes to complete a LIP sequence, the switch operates at full switching bandwidth that reaches wire speeds of 200 MB/s.

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