SAN Connectivity Methods There are three basic methods of communication using Fibre Channel infrastructure Point to point

nt (P-to-P) A direct connection between two devices Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) A daisy chain connecting two or more devices Fabric connect (FC-SW) Multiple devices connected via switching technologie

FC SAN: What is a Fabric Logically defined space used by FC nodes to communicate with each other One switch or group of switches connected together Routes traffic between attached devices Component identifiers: Domain ID Unique identifier for an FC switch within a fabric Worldwide Name (WWN) Unique 64-bit identifier for an FC port (either a host port or a storage port

What a SAN Does SAN is a technology that addresses two critical storage connectivity problems: Host-to-storage connectivity: so a host computer can access and use storage provisioned to it Storage-to-storage connectivity: for data replication between storage arrays SAN technology uses block-level I/O protocols As distinct from NAS, which uses file-level I/O protocols

 The host is presented with raw storage devices: just as in traditional, direct-attached storage A SAN