Fibre Channel

Fibre Channel, or FC, is a high-speed network technology (commonly running at 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 128 gigabit per second rates) primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers.[1][2] Fibre Channel is mainly used in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data centers. Fibre Channel networks form a switched fabric because they operate in unison as one big switch. Fibre Channel typically runs on optical fiber cables within and between data centers.[1][2]

Most block storage runs over Fibre Channel Fabrics and supports many upper level protocols. Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) is a transport protocol that predominantly transports SCSI commands over Fibre Channel networks.[1][2] Mainframe computers run the FICON command set over Fibre Channel because of its high reliability and throughput. Fibre Channel can be used for flash memory being transported over the NVMe interface protocol.

Etymology

To promote the fiber optic aspects of the technology and to make a unique name, the industry decided to use the British English spelling fibre for the standard.

History

Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS), an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited standards committee. Fibre Channel started in 1988, with ANSI standard approval in 1994, to merge the benefits of multiple physical layer implementations including SCSI, HIPPI and ESCON.

Fibre Channel was designed as a serial interface to overcome limitations of the SCSI and HIPPI interfaces. FC was developed with leading edge multi-mode fiber technologies that overcame the speed limitations of the ESCON protocol. By appealing to the large base of SCSI disk drives and leveraging mainframe technologies, Fibre Channel developed economies of scale for advanced technologies and deployments became economical and widespread.

Initially, the standard also ratified lower speed Fibre Channel versions with 132.8125 Mbit/s ("12,5 MB/s"), 265.625 Mbit/s ("25 MB/s"), and 531.25 Mbit/s ("50 MB/s") that were already growing out of use at the time.[3] Fibre Channel saw adoption at 1 Gigabit/s Fibre Channel (1GFC) and its success grew with each successive speed. Fibre Channel has doubled in speed every few years since 1996.

Fibre channel has seen active development since its inception, with numerous speed improvements on a variety of underlying transport media. For example, the following table shows native Fibre Channel speeds:[4]

Fibre Channel Variants
NAME Line-rate (gigabaud) Line coding Nominal throughput
per direction; MB/s
 Net throughput
per direction; MB/s[v 1][v 2]		 Availability
1GFC 1.0625 8b10b 100 103.2 1997
2GFC 2.125 8b10b 200 206.5 2001
4GFC 4.25 8b10b 400 412.9 2004
8GFC 8.5 8b10b 800 825.8 2005
10GFC 10.51875 64b66b 1,200 1,239 2008
16GFC 14.025 64b66b 1,600 1,652 2011
32GFC "Gen 6" 28.05 64b66b 3,200 3,303 2016[5]
128GFC "Gen 6" 28.05 ×4 64b66b 12,800 13,210 2016[5]
  1. ↑ 1 MB = 10002 Byte
  2. ↑ taking into account line coding (L1), interframe gap (6×4 byte), and frame header (L2) overhead (36 byte)

In addition to a cutting edge physical layer, Fibre Channel also added support for any number of "upper layer" protocols, including ATM, IP and FICON, with SCSI being the predominant usage.

Topologies

There are three major Fibre Channel topologies, describing how a number of ports are connected together. A port in Fibre Channel terminology is any entity that actively communicates over the network, not necessarily a hardware port. This port is usually implemented in a device such as disk storage, an HBA on a server or a Fibre Channel switch.[1]

Attribute Point-to-Point Arbitrated Loop Switched Fabric
Max ports 2 127 ~16777216 (224)
Address size N/A 8-bit ALPA 24-bit port ID
Side effect of port failure Link fails Loop fails (until port bypassed) N/A
Access to medium Dedicated Arbitrated Dedicated

Layers

Fibre Channel does not follow the OSI model layering, and is split into five layers:

Fibre Channel is a layered technology that starts at the physical layer and progresses through the protocols to the upper level protocols like SCSI and SBCCS.

This diagram from FC-FS-4 defines the layers.

Layers FC-0 are defined in Fibre Channel Physical Interfaces (FC-PI-6), the physical layers of Fibre Channel.

Fibre Channel products are available at 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 16 and 32 and 128 Gbit/s; these protocol flavors are called accordingly 1GFC, 2GFC, 4GFC, 8GFC, 10GFC, 16GFC, 32GFC or 128GFC. The 32GFC standard was approved by the INCITS T11 committee in 2013, and those products became available in 2016. The 1GFC, 2GFC, 4GFC, 8GFC designs all use 8b/10b encoding, while the 10GFC and 16GFC standard uses 64b/66b encoding. Unlike the 10GFC standards, 16GFC provides backward compatibility with 4GFC and 8GFC since it provides exactly twice the throughput of 8GFC or four times that of 4GFC.

Ports

FC topologies and port types: This diagram shows how N_Ports can be connected to a fabric or to another N_Port. A Loop Port (L_Port) communicates through a shared loop and is rarely used anymore.

Fibre Channel ports come in a variety of logical configurations. The most common types of ports are:

Fibre Channel Loop protocols create multiple types of Loop Ports:

If a port can support loop and non-loop functionality, the port is known as:

A Port has a physical structure as well as logical or virtual structure. This diagram shows how a virtual port may have multiple physical ports and vice versa.

Ports have virtual components and physical components and are described as:

The following types of ports are also used in Fibre Channel:

Media and modules

Fibre Channel predominantly uses the SFP module with the LC connector and duplex cabling, but 128GFC uses the QSFP28 module and the MPO connectors and ribbon cabling.

The Fibre Channel physical layer is based on serial connections that use corresponding modules. The small form-factor pluggable transceiver (SFP) module and its enhanced version SFP+ are common form factors for ports, supporting a variety of distances via multi-mode and single-mode fiber as shown in the table below. The SFP module uses duplex fiber cabling that has LC connectors.

The quad small form-factor pluggable (QSFP) module began being used for 4-lane implementations of 128GFC. The QSFP uses either the LC connector for 128GFC-CWDM4 or an MPO connector for 128GFC-SW4 or 128GFC-PSM4. The MPO cabling uses 8- or 12-fiber cabling infrastructure that connects to another 128GFC port or may be broken out into four duplex LC connections to 32GFC SFP+ ports. Fibre Channel switches use either SFP or QSFP modules.

Fiber

Type

 Speed (MB/s) Transmitter[10] Medium variant Distance
Single-mode

Fiber (SMF)

 12,800 1,310 nm longwave light 128GFC-PSM4 0.5m - 0.5 km
1,270, 1,290, 1,310 and 1,330 nm longwave light 128GFC-CWDM4 0.5 m – 2 km
3,200 1,310 nm longwave light 3200-SM-LC-L 0.5 m - 10 km
1,600 1,310 nm longwave light[ITS 1] 1600-SM-LC-L[ITS 2] 0.5 m – 10 km
1,490 nm longwave light[ITS 1] 1600-SM-LZ-I[ITS 2] 0.5 m – 2 km
800 1,310 nm longwave light[ITS 3] 800-SM-LC-L[ITS 4] 2 m – 10 km
800-SM-LC-I[ITS 4] 2 m – 1.4 km
400 1,310 nm longwave light[ITS 3][ITS 5] 400-SM-LC-L[ITS 6] 2 m – 10 km
400-SM-LC-M[ITS 4] 2 m – 4 km
400-SM-LL-I[ITS 7] 2 m – 2 km
200 1,550 nm longwave light[ITS 8] 200-SM-LL-V[ITS 8] 2 m – 50 km
1,310 nm longwave light[ITS 5][ITS 3] 200-SM-LC-L[ITS 6] 2 m – 10 km
200-SM-LL-I[ITS 7] 2 m – 2 km
100 1,550 nm longwave light[ITS 8] 100-SM-LL-V[ITS 8] 2 m – 50 km
1,310 nm longwave light[ITS 9][ITS 3] 100-SM-LL-L[ITS 10]
100-SM-LC-L[ITS 6] 		2 m – 10 km
100-SM-LL-I[ITS 10] 2 m – 2 km
Multimode

Fiber (MMF)

 12,800 850 nm shortwave light[ITS 11][ITS 12][ITS 13] 128GFC-SW4 0 – 100 m
3,200 3200-SN 0 – 100 m
1,600 1600-M5F-SN-I[ITS 14] 0.5 m – 125 m
1600-M5E-SN-I[ITS 14] 0.5–100 m
1600-M5-SN-S[ITS 14] 0.5–35 m
1600-M6-SN-S[ITS 15] 0.5–15 m
800 800-M5F-SN-I[ITS 14] 0.5–190 m
800-M5E-SN-I[ITS 16] 0.5–150 m
800-M5-SN-S[ITS 16] 0.5–50 m
800-M6-SN-S[ITS 16] 0.5–21 m
400 400-M5F-SN-I[ITS 14] 0.5–400 m
400-M5E-SN-I[ITS 16] 0.5–380 m
400-M5-SN-I[ITS 17] 0.5–150 m
400-M6-SN-I[ITS 17] 0.5–70 m
200 200-M5E-SN-I[ITS 16] 0.5–500 m
200-M5-SN-I[ITS 17] 0.5–300 m
200-M6-SN-I[ITS 17] 0.5–150 m
100 100-M5E-SN-I[ITS 18] 0.5–860 m
100-M5-SN-I[ITS 19] 0.5–500 m
100-M6-SN-I[ITS 20] 0.5–300 m
100-M5-SL-I[ITS 20] 2–500 m
100-M6-SL-I[ITS 21] 2–175 m
Multimode fiber Fiber diameter FC media designation
OM1 62.5 µm M6
OM2 50 µm M5
OM3 50 µm M5E
OM4 50 µm M5F

Modern Fibre Channel devices support SFP transceiver, mainly with LC (Lucent Connector) fiber connector. Older 1GFC devices used GBIC transceiver, mainly with SC (Subscriber Connector) fiber connector.

Fibre Channel Storage Area Networks

The Fibre Channel SAN connects servers to storage via Fibre Channel switches.

The goal of Fibre Channel is to create a storage area network (SAN) to connect servers to storage.

The SAN is a dedicated network that enables multiple servers to access the same storage. Enterprise storage uses the SAN to backup to tape libraries while the storage is still accessible to the server. Servers may access storage from multiple storage devices over the network as well.

SANs are often designed with dual fabrics to increase fault tolerance. Two completely separate fabrics are operational and if the primary fabric fails, then the second fabric becomes the primary.

Fibre Channel Switches

Fibre Channel switch with SFP+ modules and LC optical fiber connectors with Optical Multimode 3 (OM3) fiber (aqua).

Fibre Channel switches can be divided into two classes. These classes are not part of the standard, and the classification of every switch is a marketing decision of the manufacturer:

A fabric consisting entirely of one vendors products is considered to be homogeneous. This is often referred to as operating in its "native mode" and allows the vendor to add proprietary features which may not be compliant with the Fibre Channel standard.

If multiple switch vendors are used within the same fabric it is heterogeneous, the switches may only achieve adjacency if all switches are placed into their interoperability modes. This is called the "open fabric" mode as each vendor's switch may have to disable its proprietary features to comply with the Fibre Channel standard.

Some switch manufacturers offer a variety of interoperability modes above and beyond the "native" and "open fabric" states. These "native interoperability" modes allow switches to operate in the native mode of another vendor and still maintain some of the proprietary behaviors of both. However, running in native interoperability mode may still disable some proprietary features and can produce fabrics of questionable stability.

Fibre Channel Host Bus Adapters

Dual port 8Gb FC host bus adapter card.

Fibre Channel HBAs, as well as CNAs, are available for all major open systems, computer architectures, and buses, including PCI and SBus. Some are OS dependent. Each HBA has a unique World Wide Name (WWN), which is similar to an Ethernet MAC address in that it uses an Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) assigned by the IEEE. However, WWNs are longer (8 bytes). There are two types of WWNs on a HBA; a node WWN (WWNN), which can be shared by some or all ports of a device, and a port WWN (WWPN), which is necessarily unique to each port.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Preston, W. Curtis (2002). "Fibre Channel Architecture". Using SANs and NAS. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media. pp. 19–39. ISBN 978-0-596-00153-7. OCLC 472853124.
  2. 1 2 3 Riabov, Vladmir V. (2004). "Storage Area Networks (SANs)". In Bidgoli, Hossein. The Internet Encyclopedia. Volume 3, P-Z. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 329–338. ISBN 978-0-471-68997-3. OCLC 55610291.
  3. ↑ Fibre Channel Physical and Signaling Interface (FC-PH) Rev 4.3, June 1, 1994
  4. ↑ "Roadmaps". Fibre Channel Industry Association. Retrieved 2013-01-06.
  5. 1 2 Brocade 32Gb platform released, Storagereview.com http://www.storagereview.com/brocade_g620_gen_6_fibre_channel_switch_released
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Fibre Channel - Framing and Signaling - 4 (FC-FS-4)
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Fibre Channel - Switch Fabric 6 (FC-SW-6)
  8. 1 2 3 4 "BCFA in a Nutshell Study Guide for Exam" (PDF). Brocade Communications, Inc. February 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2016.
  9. ↑ "Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide, Release 4.x". Cisco Systems, Inc. November 11, 2013. Retrieved June 28, 2016.
  10. ↑ Transmitter values listed are the currently specified values for the variant listed. Some older versions of the FC standards listed slightly different values (however, the values listed here fall within the +/- variance allowed). Individual variations for each specification are listed in the references associated with those entries in this table. FC-PH = X3T11 Project 755D; FC-PH-2 = X3T11 Project 901D; FC-PI-4 = INCITS Project 1647-D; FC-PI-5 = INCITS Project 2118D. Copies are available from INCITS.

INCITS Fibre Channel standards

  1. 1 2 FC-PI-5 Clause 6.3
  2. 1 2 FC-PI-5 Clause 8.1
  3. 1 2 3 4 FC-PI-4 Clause 6.3
  4. 1 2 3 FC-PI-4 Clause 8.1
  5. 1 2 FC-PH-2 lists 1300nm (see clause 6.1 and 8.1)
  6. 1 2 3 FC-PI clause 8.1
  7. 1 2 FC-PH-2 clause 8.1
  8. 1 2 3 4 FC-PI-4 Clause 11
  9. ↑ FC-PH lists 1300nm (see clause 6.1 and 8.1)
  10. 1 2 FC-PH Clause 8.1
  11. ↑ FC-PI-5 Clause 6.4
  12. ↑ FC-PI-4 Clause 6.4
  13. ↑ The older FC-PH and FC-PH-2 list 850nm (for 62.5µm cables) and 780nm (for 50µm cables)(see clause 6.2, 8.2, and 8.3)
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 FC-PI-5 Clause 8.2
  15. ↑ FC-PI-5 Annex A
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 FC-PI-4 Clause 8.2
  17. 1 2 3 4 FC-PI Clause 8.2
  18. ↑ PC-PI-4 Clause 8.2
  19. ↑ PC-PI Clause 8.2
  20. 1 2 PC-PI Clause 8.2
  21. ↑ FC-PH Annex C and Annex E

Sources

Further reading

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