FC2354603-00 A 1-1
Section 1
Introduction
1.1
How to Use this Guide
The SANblade™ QLogic host bus adapters (HBAs) supported in this document are
described in the following paragraphs. They are collectively referred to as the
QLA2310F/2310FL HBA unless otherwise noted.
■ QLA
®
2310F (single channel, full-height bracket, optical media)
■ QLA
®
2310FL (single channel, low-profile bracket, optical media)
The QLA2310F/2310FL HBAs are 64-bit, 66-MHz PCI-X to Fibre Channel optical
media.
First, install the QLA2310F/2310FL HBA according to the directions in the
appropriate hardware installation section. Secondly, install the software driver
according the directions in the associated readme.txt file.
1.2
General Description
Thank you for selecting the QLA2310F/2310FL Fibre Channel (FC) HBA. The
QLA2310F/2310FL HBA is an intelligent, high-performance, DMA bus master host
adapter designed for high-end systems. The intelligence and performance are
derived from the ISP23xx chips, making the QLA2310F/2310FL HBA a
leading-edge host adapter. The ISP23xx combines a powerful RISC processor, a
Fibre Channel protocol manager (FPM) with one or more 2-Gb Fibre Channel
transceivers, and a peripheral component interconnect-extended (PCI-X) local bus
interface in a single-chip solution. The QLA2310F/2310FL HBA supports all FC
peripherals that support private loop direct attach (PLDA) and fabric loop attach
(FLA). Installation of the QLA2310F/2310FL HBA is quick and easy.
1.3
What is Fibre Channel?
Fibre Channel technology is outlined in the SCSI-3 Fibre Channel Protocol
(SCSI-FCP) standard. Fibre Channel is a high-speed data transport technology
used for mass storage and networking. It connects mainframes, super computers,
workstations, storage devices, and servers.
Fibre Channel supports data transfer rates up to 200 MBps half-duplex and
400 MBps full-duplex on copper and optical interfaces. The QLA2310F/2310FL
HBAs use a multimode optical interface for intermediate distances (less than