next up previous
Next: Asynchronous Transfer Mode Up: Available Networking Technologies Previous: High Performance Parallel

Fibre Channel

Fibre Channel is being developed to resolve fundamental problems inherent to channel technologies, and as a result, extend the benefits of channel technology into the local area network. Fibre Channel technology addresses the distance limitations of conventional HiPPI and other channel technologies and the address space limitations of these technologies. Fibre Channel has scalable bandwidth/media options that permits the use of shielded twisted pair for 133 megabit-per-second links and multi-gigabit-per-second rates over fiber optic links for distances of up to ten kilometers. Fibre Channel has the capability of carrying both channel and network protocols simultaneously on the same media, by encapsulating IP signals in a manner illustrated in figure 4. Lastly, Fibre Channel uses 24 bit wide addresses so that over 16 million nodes can be included on a network.

Those computer vendors that are providing backing for Fibre Channel are:

Hewlett-Packard is offering their HP 9000 Computational Cluster with Fibre Channel as one cluster interconnection option. The HP 9000 Computational Cluster has up to eight HP series 700 workstations packaged in a single cabinet with high-performance networking support. In addition to Fibre Channel, the Computation Cluster can be purchased with ATM, switched FDDI, or HiPPI as the interconnection network. IBM was also demonstrating Fibre Channel technology and distributed an IBM Technology Brief that discusses the complementary features of Fibre Channel and ATM technology. Adapters are available for workstations from Sun Microsystems and from SGI. Anchor Communications is a networking company that has been developing commercial Fibre Channel products for the last several years, and marketing Fibre Channel products for the last year.

Fibre Channel appears to be a technology designed specifically to overcome the shortfalls of conventional HiPPI. Meanwhile, the HiPPI standards are being expanded in an attempt to compete with Fibre Channel technology. Serial HiPPI has been developed to provide similar gigabit-per-second throughput over long distances (10 kilometers) over fiber. HiPPI can encapsulate data from TCP/IP applications, and HiPPI has the capability to double the address space to match the 24 bit addresses of Fibre Channel. As the supercomputing industry readjusts to the end of the Cold War and reduced government spending for research, it will be interesting to see if both Fibre Channel and (serial) HiPPI can survive.



next up previous
Next: Asynchronous Transfer Mode Up: Available Networking Technologies Previous: High Performance Parallel



David P. Koester
Sun Oct 22 13:05:27 EDT 1995