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AIX Version 4.3 Differences Guide

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The Gigabit Fibre Channel adapter provides an attachment of one or two external<br />

RAID subsystems to one or two hosts. The two host configuration supports<br />

HACMP. Single host configuration with two adapters support fail-over from one<br />

controller to the other. A follow-on product will provide 4-way attachment.<br />

The new adapter supports connectivity to the IBM 2102-F10 Fibre Channel RAID<br />

Disk Array subsystem with IBM 2102-D00 Storage Drawers through the optional<br />

IBM 2103-H07 Fibre Channel Hubs.<br />

The supported configurations include:<br />

• Point-to-Point<br />

In this configuration, an adapter is connected directly to one RAID subsystem<br />

using the shortwave cable. Even though it is physically a point-to-point<br />

configuration, it logically appears to be a private (closed) arbitrated loop.<br />

Maximum distance between the adapter and subsystem is 500 meters.<br />

• Private Arbitrated Loop<br />

In this configuration, one hub is attached to the adapter through the shortwave<br />

cable. The hub is a non-intelligent device. It is considered to be part of the<br />

cabling and is not recognized by the adapter as a device. From the hub, up to<br />

two RAID subsystems can be attached.<br />

Although Gigabit Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet could use similar physical<br />

media, such as fiber optic cable, Gigabit Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet<br />

operate at different speeds and protocols. For example, Fibre Channel operates<br />

at 1.0625 Gbps, while Gigabit Ethernet operates at 1.25 Gbps. Fibre Channel<br />

protocol is optimized for the low-latency and high reliability required by storage,<br />

while Gigabit Ethernet protocol is optimized for LAN.<br />

Table 4 compares the features of FC-AL and SSA technology.<br />

Table 4. Features of FC-AL and SSA<br />

Features FC-AL SSA<br />

Bandwidth 100MB/s 80MB/s<br />

(20MB per link)<br />

Connectivity (nodes per loop) 126 nodes 128 nodes<br />

Distance between nodes<br />

30m (copper)<br />

10km (optical)<br />

25m (copper)<br />

2.4km (optical)<br />

Arbitration Yes No<br />

Connector 9-pin DIN (copper) 9-pin DIN<br />

Hardware Announcements 11

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