SAN Solution Installation Guide

Glossary-1
Glossary
A
AL_PA Arbitrated Loop Physical
Address, an 8-bit value used to
identify a participating device in
an arbitrated loop.
arbitrated loop topology Fibre
Channel topology that provides a
low-cost solution to attach
multiple communicating ports in a
loop without switches.
asynchronous SCSI signals are
transmitted one at a time down
the SCSI communication path.
B
bandwidth Transmission
capacity of a link or a system
C
cleaning tape A tape that is
used only for cleaning a drive.
D
differential SCSI A type of SCSI
cable that can go a maximum of 25
meters.
drive, tape drive The device
that the library uses to record
data onto tapes.
F
fabric Switched interconnect
methodology that supports high-
speed data routing in Fibre
Channel networks.
FC Fibre Channel
FC-AL An acronym for Fibre
Channel Arbitrated Loop
topology.
FC-SW An acronym for Fibre
Channel Switched Topology. The
highest performance Fibre
Channel fabric, providing a choice
of multiple path routings between
pairs of F-ports.
Fibre Bridge Bi-directional
connectivity for data transfers
between Fibre and SCSI.
Fibre Channel A switched
protocol that allows concurrent
communication among
workstations, supercomputers,
mainframes, data storage devices,
and other periperals. Fibre
Channel is capable of
transmitting at rates exceeding
one gigabit per second in both
directions simultaneously.
G
GBIC An acronym for the Gigabit
Interface Converter, a removable
transceiver module for Fibre
Channel and Gigabit Ethernet
physical-layer transport.