Physical Layer of Fibre Channel Networks

The physical layer of a Fibre Channel network consists of the following three basic physical units:

(1) Port: an interface used to connect a server system and a fiber optic switch, or an interface used to connect a storage device to a fiber optic switch.

(2) Network equipment: fiber optic switches that communicate using fiber optic protocols.

(3) Cable: used for the connection between the server interface and the optical switch interface, or the connection between the interface of the storage device and the optical switch interface.