Switched fabric, switching fabric, or just fabric, is a network topology where network nodes connect with each other via one or more network switches (particularly via crossbar switches, hence the name). A A crossbar switch (also known as cross-point switch, crosspoint switch, or matrix switch) is a Switch connecting multiple inputs to multiple The term is popular in telecommunication, Fibre Channel storage area networks and other high-speed networks, including InfiniBand. Fibre Channel, or FC, is a Gigabit -speed network technology primarily used for Storage networking. In Information technology, a storage area network ( SAN) is an architecture to attach remote computer storage devices (such as Disk arrays tape libraries InfiniBand is a Switched fabric communications link primarily used in High-performance computing.
Switched fabric in Fibre Channel
In the Fibre Channel switched fabric topology (called FC-SW), devices are connected to each other through one or more Fibre Channel switches. A Fibre Channel fabric (or Fibre Channel switched fabric, FC-SW) is a Switched fabric of Fibre Channel devices enabled by a Fibre Channel Fibre Channel, or FC, is a Gigabit -speed network technology primarily used for Storage networking. In the Computer storage field a Fibre Channel switch is a Network switch compatible with the Fibre Channel (FC protocol This topology allows the connection of up to the theoretical maximum of 16 million devices, limited only by the available address space (224). Multiple switches in a fabric usually form a mesh network, with devices being on the "edges" ("leaves") of the mesh. Mesh networking is a way to route data voice and instructions between nodes. While this topology has the best scalability properties of the three FC topologies, it is also the most expensive, the only one requiring a costly FC switch. In Telecommunications and Software engineering, scalability is a desirable property of a system a network or a process which indicates its ability to either
Visibility among nodes in a fabric is typically controlled with zoning. In Storage networking, Fibre Channel zoning is the partitioning of a Fibre Channel fabric into smaller subsets to restrict interference add security and to simplify
Most Fibre Channel network designs employ two separate fabrics for redundancy. In Engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the System, usually The two fabrics share the edge nodes (devices), but are otherwise unconnected. One of the advantages of this topology is capability of failover, meaning that in case one link breaks or a switch is out of order, datagrams can use the second fabric. Failover is the capability to switch over automatically to a redundant or standby Computer server, System, or network upon the failure In Information technology, a packet is a formatted unit of Data carried by a Packet mode Computer network.
See also
- Network topology
- Storage area network
- Fibre Channel
- Fibre Channel point-to-point, for alternate FC topology
- Arbitrated loop, for second alternate FC topology
- Clos network
External links
Network topology is the study of the arrangement or mapping of the elements ( links, nodes, etc In Information technology, a storage area network ( SAN) is an architecture to attach remote computer storage devices (such as Disk arrays tape libraries Fibre Channel, or FC, is a Gigabit -speed network technology primarily used for Storage networking. Fibre Channel point-to-point ( FC-P2P) is a Fibre Channel topology where exactly two ports (devices are directly connected to each other Arbitrated loop, also known as FC-AL, is a Fibre Channel topology in which devices are connected in a one-way loop fashion in a ring topology In the field of Telecommunications, a Clos network is a kind of multistage switching network first formalized by Charles Clos in 1953, which represents a theoretical idealizationDapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic