Talk:Fibre Channel

Spelling and captitalization

Fibre Channel is a proper noun and thus is always capitalized. Please do not un-capitalize it. I have proposed a standard for capitalization of industry jargon here. Please stop editing these articles until the matter is settled in a Wiki fashion!

It's also ALWAYS spelled "Fibre" when referring to the protocol instead of the glass. FYI.--SFoskett 19:13, Sep 1, 2004 (UTC)

I've clarified the explanation on spelling. In Commonwealth English, the spelling fibre is used for glass (indeed, whenever American English uses "fiber"). It is only the American English that has the distinction. So, the explanation is primarily of interest to those needing to use American English. 60.240.207.146 (talk) 08:41, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Apple Promotion

The caption for the link to Apple sounds like an advert to me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.39.153.79 (talk • contribs) 15:47, December 7, 2005 (UTC)

Duplicate Article

There is a very similar article at Fibre_channel_port. I don't know the protocol for merging and don't have time to figure it out right now. Hopefully someone else finds this. --Lukus 23:26, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Done. Smallpond 19:35, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems like its a separate article again (as of 2k7.04.06). There are differences between articles. Is there a way to compare articles | see only differences ? And you are right, i'm sorry i have no idea how this works. Someone.

add 3PAR to Fibre Channel Storage

Please add 3PAR (http://www.3pardata.com) to "Fibre Channel Storage". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.126.187.138 (talk • contribs) 15:27, June 13, 2006 (UTC)

I think the storage companies should all be deleted. Mentioning the companies is

just advertising - not real information. Its against the Wikipedia rules. Also,

mentioning some and leaving out others is unfair. I propose removing the sections

"Fibre Channel Storage" and "Storage Virtualization Software and Hardware"

which are just collections of links to the respective companies. Smallpond 14:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Per the guidelines, I deleted the sections that were just collections of ad links. Smallpond 20:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

can someone add a picture

What does the Fibre Channel plug look like? An example of some periferal would be nice. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.131.2.235 (talk • contribs) 16:01, July 2, 2006 (UTC)

Here are some pictures, choose one you like :) --Kvedulv 15:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Deleted some entries from table

I include deleted entries here. I found them unclear and confusing (to an unprepared reader). I think some of them could be re-incorporated into the main text - with proper explanation.

Attribute	Point-to-Point	Arbitrated loop	Switched fabric
Max bandwidth	2× link rate	2× link rate	(Number of ports) × link rate
Address assignment	N_port login	Loop init. and fabric login	Fabric login
Concurrent connections	1	1	Switch ports/2
Concurrent maintenance	Link down	May disrupt entire loop	Switch and port link down
Expansion	Additional P2P links	Attach loop to fabric	Expand fabric
Redundancy	Add redundant P2P link	Use dual loops	Use redundant switches
Media types supported	All	All	All
Classes of service supported	All	1, 2, & 3	All
Cost per port	Port cost	Port cost + loop function	Port cost + fabric port

--Kubanczyk 18:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

From the first page...

(*Note: The term "trunking" is not a standard Fiber Channel term and is thereby used by vendors interchangably.

Should ei be a negated sentence... not interganchangeable, or replace interchangeable...

...vendors arbitrarily ...vendors inconsistently

A note about the bandwidth and other table items inthe discussion page... these are indeed important concepts... and ones that different vendors also use inconsistently. Cisco uses a bandwidth number that is generally higher than Brocade... because Brocade considers a 1gbit fibre as a 1gbit (each way) link, while Cisco markets the 1gbit bandwidth as a 2gbit aggregate (1gbit each way) link.

Yeah.. confusing for th unprepared.. making a description of the issue all the more important. Other differences in architecture make the bandwidth numbers within the switch even hazier... at the link, however things OUGHT to be clear, or inconsistencies explained. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.45.28.215 (talk) 19:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Multi-vendor networks

"Heterogeneous" means having equipment from more than one vendor; its use in the article appears to be a thinko on the part of the editor, and I'm editing accordingly. If I'm incorrect, please discuss. Also, I suggest removing the comment "recommending" homogeneous networks--it doesn't appear appropriate for WP. chrylis (talk) 01:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

History section is wrong

Although backed by a very "authoritative" source, the History section is incorrect. For example IBM was selling 1063 Mbps switches in 1995 (which obviously is before the stated 1997, see IBM Announcement Letter 195-297 dated October 10, 1995), and FC-266 products back in 1992 (seen that in an IBM paper catalogue in 1993 which stayed with my former employer). To the best of my knowledge FC have started at 133 Mbps with hubs similar to those found in Token-Ring and FDDI. --91.92.29.19 (talk) 22:04, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Should have something on fractional speeds. Pretty sure that Sun also used quarter-speed FC. Cern news site archive mentions 16-port Ancor switch and full speed switch soon in 1995. Smallpond (talk) 16:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Why was SSA better?

The page claims that IBM's Serial Storage Architecture was superior but doesn't say why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.159.226 (talk) 09:19, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

100 Mbyte/s

The caption for File:Lc-sc-fiber-connectors.jpg currently reads “Typical Fibre Channel connectors - modern LC on the left and older SC (typical for 100 Mbyte/s speeds) on the right” (emphasis added). Shouldn’t that be “Mbit/s”? Generally speaking, network speeds are measured in bits and storage capacities are measured in bytes. However, I’m not very familiar with Fibre Channel, so I’ll avoid changing it myself… —Wulf (talk) 03:46, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

100 megabytes per second is correct for "usable" transfer, but not for the line speed. So feel free to change it to "1 Gb/s speed" to avoid further misunderstandings. As FC uses 8/10 bit encoding it is not possible to transfer information in units other than full octets. --Kubanczyk (talk) 22:43, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Fibre Channel Variants Table

  The last two rows of the table Fibre Channel Variants state that 16GFC and 20GFC would be available in 2011 and 2008 respectively. It is now 2011, and I have yet to find a single 16GFC product from any of the major vendors - is there any reference for this claim? As for 20GFC being available in 2008, perhaps it is a typographical error, and should it actually be 2018? Rocketshiporion♫ 01:03, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Take a look, e.g., at the QLogic 2600 HBA series

Add Linux FC Target?

With Linux 3.5 (released 2012-07-21), the Linux kernel now has a Fibre Channel target mode driver built in for the first time. Is it worthwhile mentioning here?

Edits by 96.247.231.106

@96.247.231.106: I have asked that the edit you made 17:06, 19 May 2016 (UTC) be suppressed as the edit summary you included contains personal information (namely an email address). Unfortunately this will likely result in the suppression of the contents of the edit as well (unless there are options that the Wikipedia:Oversight team has that I'm not aware of).

Unfortunately I think the bulk of your edit is/was reasonable, so losing it will be unfortunately. I'd ask you to simply remake it, except that you likely have a WP:Conflict of Interest as regards this article (you stated in your edit summary that you are an employee of a major vendor of FC hardware). Please read WP:COI for policy on that situation. I agree that the article is in poor shape now, but the proper place to discuss it is on the article's talk page (here), not in private email. As an editor with a potential COI, it's best to make edit suggestions on the talk page as opposed to editing the article yourself, although that's not strictly forbidden. Preparing a draft article for review as a major update of this might be a good idea. In any event, remember that you or your organization will not WP:OWN this article, nor is Wikipedia a platform for WP:PROMOTION for yourself, your organization or any of its products.

Despite that, I don't want to discourage you from contributing - this is clearly an article that could use some help from subject matter experts, and given the nature of FC, many potential SMEs are likely going to have some COI. So I would just encourage you to stick with the guidelines in the COI policy. Again the place to discuss this article is right here (although you may want to start a new section). Rwessel (talk) 23:23, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

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Request review of potential typo by a Subject Matter Expert in Fibre Channel (SME: FC).

Issue:

I found what appears to be a glaring inconsistency, a technical term referencing version 4 immediately followed by its acronym in parentesis, but making reference to version 5. Having said that, it's probably just a typo, or more specifically, an incomplete update.

Re: Potential conflicting information, please see the articles section on

Layers [section:]

Fibre Channel does not follow the OSI model layering, and is split into five layers:
- FC-4....
- FC-3....
- FC-2 – Signaling Protocol, defined by the Fibre Channel Framing and Signaling 4 (FC-FS-5) standard....
- FC-1....
- FC-0....
Fibre Channel is...
This diagram from FC-FS-4 defines the layers. 

See also:

History [section:]

Fibre Channel variants [table]
Name: 		64GFC "Gen 7"
Line coding: 	256b257b (FC-FS-5)

Topologies [section:]

....
- Point-to-point (see FC-FS-3).

References [section:]

13. ^abcdefg  Fibre Channel - Framing and Signaling - 4 (FC-FS-4)

Suggestion:

If for some (rather odd) reason this article is correct as it stands, then while no actual edit might be required, at least some note should be made (in the talk section here, or perhaps even in the article itself) to explain what would be a rather drastic departure from convention.

Since I don't know how best to confirm which version is correct (current?), I am mentioning this seeming inconsistency here so that others who are more informed can do the right thing. I.e. edit the actual article by changing "4" to "5" and/or, vice-versa, changing "5" to "4", whichever is best, at the appropriate location(s).

Tree4rest (talk) 19:47, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Are FC Ports generally single speed or capable to connect to lower speed?

I did not found the answer to the following question in the article, it may be easy to say 'not mentioned = not supported'? As for Ethernet, electrical ports are multi speed (e.g. 10/100/1000/2500), but optical ethernet ports usually are not. Is it possible to use an 8Gbit port to connect to an 4Gbit port using the 4Gbit transfer rate? Are Switch fabrics usually only single speed? BerndSinger (talk) 09:31, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

There's no rule for that, not even for Ethernet. FC ports are much more single speed than Ethernet ports are though. --Zac67 (talk) 11:08, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Tanks, i found the word "autosensing" for this.

I seems, fibre channel switches do support multiple speeds

Example:

• [1]HPE C-series SN6010C Fibre Channel Switch
  • "Up to 48 autosensing Fibre channel ports capable of speeds of 4/8/16 Gbps"
• Cisco MDS 9000 Family 8-Gbps Fibre Channel Switching Modules Data Sheet
  • "Autosensing 1/2/4/8-Gbps interfaces: Provide high performance and compatibility with existing devices."

Should "autosensing" be mentioned? BerndSinger (talk) 20:34, 30 July 2023 (UTC)