The Fibre. Channel standard was created by the American National Standard for
Information Systems (ANSI) X3T11 task group to define a serial I/O channel for
interconnecting a number of heterogeneous peripheral devices to computer systems
as well as interconnecting the computer systems themselves through optical fiber
and copper media at gigabit speeds (i.e., one billion bits per second). Multiple
protocols such as SCSI (Small Computer Serial Interface), IP (Internet Protocol),
HIPPI, ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) among others can concurrently utilize the
same media when mapped over Fibre Channel. A Fibre Channel Fabric is an entity
which transmits Fibre Channel frames between connected Node Ports. The Fibre Channel
fabric routes the frames based on the destination address as well as other information
embedded in the Fibre Channel frame header. Node Ports are attached to the Fibre
Channel Fabric through links.
