Page 14 of 18 Fibre Channel: Why another interface? March 2001 The native solution As Fibre Channel gains acceptance, more and more devices are incorporating a native, or built-in, Fibre Channel interface to replace the traditional SCSI interface. These devices retain their SCSI command-set functionality, but use a Fibre Channel controller instead of a SCSI controller to provide the network interface for data transmission. In addition to managing the physical interface, these Fibre Channel controllers map the upper-level SCSI command protocols onto the data transmission protocols used by the Fibre Channel interface. Native Fibre Channel provides a number of benefits over implementations that rely on a SCSI-to-Fibre Channel bridge, including: Better performance. Native Fibre Channel eliminates performance bottlenecks resulting from channeling data from multiple SCSI devices through a single Fibre Channel connection. Depending on topology used, each device has better access to the full data transfer bandwidth. Simplified network configuration. It’s no longer necessary to construct complex address mappings of multiple SCSI IDs to a single Fibre Channel connection. Simplified upgrades. New devices simply plug into the network without the need to reconfigure the bridge. Eliminating the bridge simplifies network configuration and improves performance Server Server Switch Disk Array Workstation Tape Library Library Robot Tape Drive Tape Drive Tape Drive Tape Drive Tape Drive Tape Drive Tape Drive Tape Drive In a native Fibre Channel device, the standard SCSI controller is replaced with a Fibre Channel controller, making a bridge unnecessary. p1   p2   p3   p4   p5   p6   p7   p8   p9   p10   p11   p12   p13   p14   p15   p16   p17   p18