Fcoe Overview; Storage Area Network; Fc San - HP FlexFabric 5700 Series Configuration Manual

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
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copy it.
Improves storage scalability.
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Centralizes the management of data backup, access, and security.
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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.
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• 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,
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the servers and disk devices are called nodes. A fabric uses 24-bit addressing and supports
thousands of devices.
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