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47-481: Upon launch in 2008, the latest generation CX4 series storage arrays supported fibre channel and iSCSI front end bus connectivity. The fibre channel back end bus offered 4 Gbit/s of bandwidth with FC-SCSI disks or SATAII disks. The EMC Celerra NAS device is based on the same X-blade architecture as the CLARiiON storage processor. The first CLARiiON was developed in 1992 by Data General Corporation, one of

94-546: A Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop connection that doubled the performance of SCSI arrays at that time. It was also the first to use RAID level 5 on Fibre Channel drives. From there, the Clariion range grew into a faster, more expandable midrange storage platform, culminating in the FC5700 under Data General. After EMC's acquisition of Data General, significant development of a new range of Clariion arrays took place, resulting in

141-499: A broad class of similarly sized components, or it may prescribe a specific standard. It may also define an entire system, as in a computer form factor. As electronic hardware has become smaller following Moore's law and related patterns, ever-smaller form factors have become feasible. Specific technological advances, such as PCI Express , have had a significant design impact, though form factors have historically evolved slower than individual components. Standardization of form factors

188-424: A controller to crash if the system was directly (loop) attached to multiple IO-heavy hosts. The second controller would then take over the load from the first one, crash due to the additional LUN trespasses. By this time, the first controller comes up and is missing a partner to sync to. At this point, some LUNs could end up with no controller responsible for them, so-called unassigned LUNs. Crashes were uncommon when

235-410: A device, and a World Wide Port Name (WWPN), which is necessarily unique to each port. Adapters or routers can connect Fibre Channel networks to IP or Ethernet networks. Computer form factor Form factor is a hardware design aspect that defines and prescribes the size, shape, and other physical specifications of components, particularly in electronics . A form factor may represent

282-509: A method to lock the drives in place once they were secured in the disk enclosure. Other notable features include industry's first dual active-controller design, mirrored write cache, full system redundancy and hot repair. The Clariion line was soon extended to contain SCSI disk arrays ranging from 7 to 30 slots. In 1997, Data General's Clariion division took the unusual step of adopting an emerging standard — Fibre Channel . The FC5000 array utilized

329-465: A mirrored write cache, but only one controller was actively serving requests for any single LUN presented to initiators. This could cause issues with unsuspecting clients, one path would always appear dead. Accesses to it would trigger a reassignment of the LUN to the other controller, a so-called trespass. This had severe implications on IO performance, and on older models like the 4500 models, this could cause

376-467: A receiver can determine when all the electrical signal values are "good" (stable and valid for simultaneous reception sampling). This challenge becomes evermore difficult in a mass-manufactured technology as data signal frequencies increase, with part of the technical compensation being ever reducing the supported connecting copper-parallel cable length. See Parallel SCSI . FC was developed with leading-edge multi-mode optical fiber technologies that overcame

423-445: A separate Clariion division and began selling the product as an OEM offering to its systems competitors. While this somewhat lessened the advantages of Aviion in the marketplace, and was a source of internal corporate friction, it allowed the company to sell higher volumes and popularize the brand. The strategy paid dividends as the company was acquired by EMC in 1999, primarily for the CLARiiON line of products. In 2011, EMC introduced

470-788: A similar fashion as QSFP-DD. The quad small form-factor pluggable (QSFP) module began being used for switch inter-connectivity and was later adopted for use in 4-lane implementations of Gen-6 Fibre Channel supporting 128GFC. QSFP uses either LC connectors for 128GFC-CWDM4 or MPO connectors for 128GFC-SW4 or 128GFC-PSM4. MPO cabling uses 8- or 12-fiber cabling infrastructure that connects to another 128GFC port or may be broken out into four duplex LC connections to 32GFC SFP+ ports. Fibre Channel switches use either SFP or QSFP modules. Modern Fibre Channel devices support SFP+ transceiver, mainly with LC (Lucent Connector) fiber connector. Older 1GFC devices used GBIC transceiver, mainly with SC (Subscriber Connector) fiber connector. The goal of Fibre Channel

517-484: A single lane, dual lanes or quad lanes that correspond to the SFP, SFP-DD and QSFP form factors. Fibre Channel does not use 8- or 16-lane modules (like CFP8, QSFP-DD, or COBO used in 400GbE) and there are no plans to use these expensive and complex modules. The small form-factor pluggable transceiver (SFP) module and its enhanced version SFP+, SFP28 and SFP56 are common form factors for Fibre Channel ports. SFP modules support

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564-477: A variety of distances via multi-mode and single-mode optical fiber as shown in the table below. SFP modules use duplex fiber cabling with LC connectors. SFP-DD modules are used for high-density applications that need to double the throughput of an SFP Port. SFP-DD is defined by the SFP-DD MSA and enables breakout to two SFP ports. Two rows of electrical contacts enable doubling the throughput of SFP modules in

611-608: A variety of logical configurations. The most common types of ports are: Fibre Channel Loop protocols create multiple types of Loop Ports: If a port can support loop and non-loop functionality, the port is known as: Ports have virtual components and physical components and are described as: The following types of ports are also used in Fibre Channel: The Fibre Channel physical layer is based on serial connections that use fiber optics to copper between corresponding pluggable modules. The modules may have

658-577: A variety of underlying transport media. The following tables shows the progression of native Fibre Channel speeds: FC used throughout all applications for Fibre Channel infrastructure and devices, including edge and ISL interconnects. Each speed maintains backward compatibility at least two previous generations (I.e., 32GFC backward compatible to 16GFC and 8GFC) Inter-Switch Links, ISLs, are usually multi-lane interconnects used for non-edge, core connections, and other high speed applications demanding maximum bandwidth. ISL’s utilize high bit-rates to accommodate

705-407: A version of Windows XP Embedded . The Clariion is built on an Intel platform and has quite unique software layer: it runs two operating environments in parallel. Windows XP Embedded or stripped-down version of Windows Server for management and maintenance tasks and proprietary UNIX-based FLARE as an actual "data mover". Embedded Windows (in the fourth generation this is 64-bit Windows Storage Server,

752-825: Is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data centers . Fibre Channel networks form a switched fabric because the switches in a network operate in unison as one big switch. Fibre Channel typically runs on optical fiber cables within and between data centers, but can also run on copper cabling. Supported data rates include 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 gigabit per second resulting from improvements in successive technology generations. The industry now notates this as Gigabit Fibre Channel (GFC). There are various upper-level protocols for Fibre Channel, including two for block storage. Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP)

799-443: Is a protocol that transports SCSI commands over Fibre Channel networks. FICON is a protocol that transports ESCON commands, used by IBM mainframe computers, over Fibre Channel. Fibre Channel can be used to transport data from storage systems that use solid-state flash memory storage medium by transporting NVMe protocol commands. When the technology was originally devised, it ran over optical fiber cables only and, as such,

846-594: Is any entity that actively communicates over the network, not necessarily a hardware port . This port is usually implemented in a device such as disk storage, a Host Bus Adapter ( HBA ) network connection on a server or a Fibre Channel switch . Fibre Channel does not follow the OSI model layering, and is split into five layers: Fibre Channel products are available at 1, 2, 4, 8, 10, 16 and 32 and 128 Gbit/s; these protocol flavors are called accordingly 1GFC, 2GFC, 4GFC, 8GFC, 10GFC, 16GFC, 32GFC or 128GFC. The 32GFC standard

893-468: Is considered to be homogeneous . This is often referred to as operating in its "native mode" and allows the vendor to add proprietary features which may not be compliant with the Fibre Channel standard. If multiple switch vendors are used within the same fabric it is heterogeneous , the switches may only achieve adjacency if all switches are placed into their interoperability modes. This is called

940-467: Is physically limited to max. 1 Gbit/s. The AX150 is available in four configurations which differ in connection and number of controllers. The AX4 is the successor of the AX150 and can support up to 60 Serial ATA or Serial Attached SCSI disks (with "Expansion Pack"). The base version has only place for 12 disks. Similar to the AX150 it is available in iSCSI or Fibre Channel configurations. Opposed to

987-412: Is provided through pluggable modules providing either IP or fibre connectivity, allowing additional back-end and front-end connections to be added over the life of the array. Advanced functionality of the Clariion is licensed and enabled through software. This includes SAN replication, Quality of service (QOS) and snapshots . The CLARiiON was a dual controller active/passive array, meaning that it had

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1034-563: Is the CX700, which is FC only. The names of the iSCSI models end with an i , e.g. CX500i . The CX3 series originally consisted of CX3-20, CX3-40, and CX3-80 models. Later the series was refreshed to include the CX3-10 and the "i" and "f" identifiers. The CX4 UltraFlex series contains multiple models which differ in the maximum number of disks (SATA or Fibre Channel) and the number of iSCSI and FC connections. The PCI Express connection between

1081-483: Is to create a storage area network (SAN) to connect servers to storage. The SAN is a dedicated network that enables multiple servers to access data from one or more storage devices. Enterprise storage uses the SAN to backup to secondary storage devices including disk arrays , tape libraries , and other backup while the storage is still accessible to the server. Servers may access storage from multiple storage devices over

1128-406: Is vital for hardware compatibility between different manufacturers. Smaller form factors may offer more efficient use of limited space, greater flexibility in the placement of components within a larger assembly, reduced use of material, and greater ease of transportation and use. However, smaller form factors typically incur greater costs in the design , manufacturing , and maintenance phases of

1175-517: The engineering lifecycle , and do not allow the same expansion options as larger form factors. In particular, the design of smaller form-factor computers and network equipment must entail careful consideration of cooling . End-user maintenance and repair of small form-factor electronic devices such as mobile phones is often not possible, and may be discouraged by warranty voiding clauses; such devices require professional servicing—or simply replacement—when they fail. Computer form factors comprise

1222-741: The "open fabric" mode as each vendor's switch may have to disable its proprietary features to comply with the Fibre Channel standard. Some switch manufacturers offer a variety of interoperability modes above and beyond the "native" and "open fabric" states. These "native interoperability" modes allow switches to operate in the native mode of another vendor and still maintain some of the proprietary behaviors of both. However, running in native interoperability mode may still disable some proprietary features and can produce fabrics of questionable stability. Fibre Channel HBAs , as well as CNAs , are available for all major open systems , computer architectures, and buses, including PCI and SBus . HBAs connect servers to

1269-506: The AX150 the AX4 supports Fibre Channel transfer speeds of up to 4 Gbit/s. The CX series supports both SATA and Fibre Channel disks. Supported RAID levels are 1/0, 0, 1, 3, 5, and 6; the disks can be configured into groups with different RAID levels. Models of the CX series come in two configurations: Fibre Channel (transfer speeds max. 2 Gbit/s) and iSCSI (max. 1 Gbit/s). The exception

1316-628: The CX4 UltraFlex Series include support for solid state flash drives, 64-bit FLARE Operating Environment and PCI-Express based SLIC I/O cards. The CX4-480 and CX-960 support fibre channel solid state flash drives introduced by EMC for the Symmetrix DMX-4 in January 2008. Solid State Flash drives offer a significant performance advantage over mechanical drives and provide a new storage tier which EMC calls Tier-0. The new version of

1363-569: The FC interface and the storage processor allows transfer speeds of up to 4 Gbit/s, while iSCSI supports speeds of max. 1 Gbit/s. All current models support RAID 0, 1, 1/0, 3, 5, and 6; as with the CX series, groups with differing RAID levels can be created. Each CX4 array consists of dual redundant hot-swappable components including storage processors, mirrored cache and battery backup, as well as redundant power supplies. The CX4 series supports Fibre Channel and iSCSI host connectivity. Major New Features in

1410-623: The FC4500 and FC4700. A special model was the IP4700, offering IP-based access to storage. Within a couple of years, the first CX series of Clariions (CX200, CX400 and CX600) was developed. Subsequent processor and bandwidth upgrades led to a new CX lineup (CX300, CX500, CX700) and a low end SATA based Clariion array, the AX100 (now updated to AX150). In 2003, Clariion became the industry's first NEBS -certified storage system. In May 2006, EMC introduced

1457-632: The FLARE operating environment that ships with the CX4 series includes support for the 64-bit Intel Xeon CPUs in the Storage Processors. The CX4 Series is also the first product to use the new PCI Express based SLIC I/O cards. The product-agnostic SLIC I/O cards provide more flexibility for future upgrades as new technologies become available, such as 8 GBit Fibre Channel and 10 GBit Ethernet/iSCSI. Fibre channel Fibre Channel ( FC )

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1504-496: The Fibre Channel network and are part of a class of devices known as translation devices. Some are OS dependent. Each HBA has a unique World Wide Name (WWN), which is similar to an Ethernet MAC address in that it uses an Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI) assigned by the IEEE . However, WWNs are longer (8 bytes ). There are two types of WWNs on an HBA; a World Wide Node Name (WWNN), which can be shared by some or all ports of

1551-461: The array. West realized the potential for more advanced and openly compatible data-storage devices, as did competitors such as Digital Equipment Corporation with their StorageWorks product. Patented in 1994, the Clariion disk array had some interesting features that later became standard in the data-storage and computing industry. Features mentioned in the patent paperwork included optional hot swapping , guide rails for proper electrical contact, and

1598-431: The benefits of multiple physical layer implementations including SCSI , HIPPI and ESCON . Fibre Channel was designed as a serial interface to overcome limitations of the SCSI and HIPPI physical-layer parallel-signal copper wire interfaces. Such interfaces face the challenge of, among other things, maintaining signal timing coherence across all the data-signal wires (8, 16 and finally 32 for SCSI, 50 for HIPPI) so that

1645-482: The event of power failure. Storage is fibre-attached, initiators may be fibre- or IP-attached, the architecture supports both on the same array depending on configuration. Storage is connected via back-end loops with up to 120 drives per loop, the drives are contained in Disk Array Enclosures (DAEs) of 15 drives each. The operating environment, FLARE (Fibre Logic Array Runtime Environment), resides on

1692-531: The first minicomputer companies. CLARiiON was an early commercial example of a RAID product and initially sold exclusively as an array with the company's Aviion line of computer systems as the HADA (High Availability Disk Array) and later the HADA II before being made available for broader open systems attachment and renamed CLARiiON in 1994. Realizing the enormous potential of storage arrays, Data General created

1739-415: The first four disks of the first DAE (bus 0 enclosure 0), which is also supplied by the integrated UPS. In the event of power failure, this space is also used to store the contents of the write cache so that all writes are completed on restoration of power. Management of the Clariion is usually through inbuilt Java-based management software called Navisphere. With the fourth generation UltraFlex series, I/O

1786-419: The funneling of edge connections. Some ISL solutions are vendor-proprietary. Two major characteristics of Fibre Channel networks are in-order delivery and lossless delivery of raw block data. Lossless delivery of raw data block is achieved based on a credit mechanism. There are three major Fibre Channel topologies, describing how a number of ports are connected together. A port in Fibre Channel terminology

1833-459: The network as well. SANs are often designed with dual fabrics to increase fault tolerance. Two completely separate fabrics are operational and if the primary fabric fails, then the second fabric becomes the primary. Fibre Channel switches can be divided into two classes. These classes are not part of the standard, and the classification of every switch is a marketing decision of the manufacturer: A fabric consisting entirely of one vendors products

1880-562: The new VNX series of unified storage disk arrays intended to replace both CLARiiON and Celerra products. Internally the VNX is labeled the CX5. In early 2012, both CLARiiON and Celerra were discontinued. The Clariion disk array project started in the early 1990s when Tom West (the protagonist of the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Soul of a New Machine ) convinced Data General to develop

1927-490: The speed limitations of the ESCON protocol. By appealing to the large base of SCSI disk drives and leveraging mainframe technologies, Fibre Channel developed economies of scale for advanced technologies and deployments became economical and widespread. Commercial products were released while the standard was still in draft. By the time the standard was ratified lower speed versions were already growing out of use. Fibre Channel

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1974-509: The third generation of Clariion, named CX3 UltraScale . The lineup, consisting of the CX3-20, CX3-40 and CX3-80, was the industry's only storage platform to leverage end-to-end 4 Gbit /s (4 billion bits per second) Fibre Channel and PCI-Express technologies. Later in 2007, the line was expanded to include a new entry-level storage system, the CX3-10. Most newer Clariion models up to the CX-4 run

2021-441: The third generation used 32-bit Windows XP). The form factor is a half-width 1U or 2U device known as an X-blade, two of which are mounted side by side in the storage processor enclosure. This provides a fully redundant active-active configuration, with both storage processors serving requests and each acting as failover for the other so that initiators see the array as active-passive. An integrated UPS provides security for data in

2068-702: The use of FC fabrics become common place, but the general issue of trespassing lived on until a certain firmware (FLARE) level with ALUA support was released, ca. 2008. The AX series is considered the entry-level disk array. Currently, two models are available the AX4 and the AX150. The AX150 supports up to 12 Serial ATA disks with either 250, 500 or 750 GB (1 GB = 10 B ) at a throughput of 150 (250 GB disks) or 300 MB/s (500, 750 GB disks) and, optionally, NCQ . Supported RAID levels are RAID 5 (with min. 3 disks) and RAID 1/0 (min. 4 disks). The Fibre Channel connection supports transfer speeds of up to 2 Gbit/s (with both AL and SW configurations), iSCSI

2115-473: Was approved by the INCITS T11 committee in 2013, and those products became available in 2016. The 1GFC, 2GFC, 4GFC, 8GFC designs all use 8b/10b encoding , while the 10GFC and 16GFC standard uses 64b/66b encoding . Unlike the 10GFC standards, 16GFC provides backward compatibility with 4GFC and 8GFC since it provides exactly twice the throughput of 8GFC or four times that of 4GFC. Fibre Channel ports come in

2162-794: Was called "Fiber Channel". Later, the ability to run over copper cabling was added to the specification. In order to avoid confusion and to create a unique name, the industry decided to change the spelling and use the British English fibre for the name of the standard. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards ( INCITS ), an American National Standards Institute (ANSI)-accredited standards committee. Fibre Channel started in 1988, with ANSI standard approval in 1994, to merge

2209-517: Was the first serial storage transport to achieve gigabit speeds where it saw wide adoption, and its success grew with each successive speed. Fibre Channel has doubled in speed every few years since 1996. In addition to a modern physical layer, Fibre Channel also added support for any number of "upper layer" protocols, including ATM , IP ( IPFC ) and FICON , with SCSI ( FCP ) being the predominant usage. Fibre Channel has seen active development since its inception, with numerous speed improvements on

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