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FCoE overview
Fibre Channel (FC) is a data transmission protocol used in a storage area network (SAN). Fibre Channel
over Ethernet (FCoE) transports FC over Ethernet. The following sections describe FCoE.
Storage area network
A SAN is any high-performance network whose primary purpose is to enable storage devices to
communicate with computer systems and with each other.
A SAN enables the universal connectivity of servers and disk devices. Compared to the conventional
client/server computer system, a SAN delivers the following benefits:
• Allows the servers to share data and directly access data created by one another without having to
copy it.
• Improves storage scalability.
• Centralizes the management of data backup, access, and security.
Most SANs use Fibre Channel (FC) or Ethernet to interconnect devices. An FC SAN uses the FC protocol
suite for communication, and an Ethernet SAN uses the TCP/IP protocol suite for communication.
This document covers only the FC SAN.
FC SAN
Figure 1 shows three FC SAN networking methods. The first two networking methods are simple and can
connect only a limited number of devices.
• The point-to-point connection directly connects a server and a disk device.
• The arbitrated loop supports up to 126 devices.
• The switched fabric connects servers and disk devices to an FC switched fabric. In a switched fabric,
the servers and disk devices are called nodes. A fabric uses 24-bit addressing and supports
thousands of devices.
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