SECURING FIBRE CHANNEL FABRICS - Brocade

Fibre Channel BasicsFC FabricsFC fabrics are implemented using FC switches, directors, backbones,and routers. Each element is addressed by a domain ID (DID) rangingfrom 1 through 239; no two switches in a fabric can have the sameDID.Enterprise-Class PlatformsOver time, a director has generally become accepted as a switch butwith higher reliability, scalability, performance, and flexibility, asdescribed in more detail below. More recently, backbone platformsjoin directors in a category known as enterprise-class platforms.Reliability• Highly redundant hardware architecture with hot swappablecomponents• Five nines (99.999 percent) availability or better; Brocade directors/backbonestend to be closer to six or seven nines (99.99999percent) of availability• Non-disruptive firmware upgrades• Non-disruptive failover of control processorsScalability• Bladed architecture to add blades as needed• Higher port count, supporting from 32 ports to 384 ports with apossibility of 768 FC ports with a dual chassis configuration usingICLs; Brocade directors/backbones have multi-terabit backplanesPerformance• High performance backplane architectureFlexibility• Support for specialized blades (application, routing)• Support for other protocols (Ethernet, iSCSI, FCIP, FICON)FC End DevicesThere are two basic types of end device that can be connected to afabric: initiators and targets. Hosts and servers are known as initiatorsand are the only devices capable of initiating conversations with otherdevices in the fabric. Data is written to target storage devices, whichcannot generally initiate a conversation on their own with otherdevices-they require an initiator to do this for them. Hosts are con-Securing Fibre Channel Fabrics 25