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Vixel Model 335 Installation & Configuration Guide CHAPTER 1 Introduction
2
Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop
The Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) is an ANSI standard (X3T11) designed to
provide shared bandwidth over low-cost media. Early adopters primarily use the SCSI
protocol transported over Fibre Channel for distributed server and storage cluster
applications. The switch is a central point of interconnect designed to maintain a fault-
tolerant physical loop topology.
InSpeed™ Technology
Vixel’s InSpeed™ technology enables the switch’s router to properly utilize the switch
core in sending data from one port to another. This process allows for multiple,
simultaneous conversations between ports — effectively multiplying bandwidth. Using
an advanced switching architecture that couples a non-blocking crossbar switch with
unique port logic and per-port SERDES', the InSpeed™ technology creates the industry’s
highest-density Fibre Channel switch.
This technology provides the same performance as switches that support FC-SW2, while
solving the latency problems associated with large FC-AL loops. During initialization,
InSpeed™ connects all devices together in a standard FC-AL2 loop. Upon completion of
the initialization process, InSpeed™ transitions to switching mode. When arbitration is
attempted, InSpeed™ analyzes connections and routes traffic directly to the destination
port.
The InSpeed™ switch is bufferless and operates on only the lower seven bits of the full
Fabric address field. Aside from the time it takes to complete a LIP sequence, the switch
operates at full switching bandwidth that reaches wire speeds of 200 MB/s.