Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL)
Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) is a serial interface designed for high-bandwidth high-end systems. Its development started in 1988 in an attempt to enhance the Intelligent Peripheral Interface (IPI). Eventually, fibre channel became, perhaps, the most significant advance in the field of data communication and interfacing. The first fibre channel standard, x3230-1994, was approved by ANSI in 1994.
FC-AL uses fiber optic cabling and copper wires to produce a maximum (burst) data transfer rate of more than 100 MB/sec. FC-AL is capable of supporting up to 127 devices as far as 10 kilometers away, thus opening a new perspective for remote data storage (web storage and storage networking). FC-AL allows “hot-swapping” ...
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