SCSI applications on fiber channel
Robert Snively · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1993
The Fiber Channel is a general purpose point-to-point serial connection standard permitting a variety of transmission media, including both copper and fiber optic transmission options with bit rates ranging from 266 megabits per second up to 1065 megabits. A switching fabric is defined for the Fiber Channel to allow the interconnection of large numbers of nodes at high bandwidth. The Fiber Channel standard defines the implementation from the physical media and connectors up through switched and connectionless transport level services well suited for high performance data transfers. For the attachment of disk and tape storage subsystems, a communication model is required to define the command, data transfer, and response sequences that access the subsystem. The Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) provides an internationally standardized architectural model optimized for the attachment of storage subsystems and other intelligent devices to host computers. This paper describes the mapping of SCSI into Fiber Channel and describes the architectural advantages of SCSI as a model for communication across the Fiber Channel.