SAN - Addressing in Fibre Channel
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Abstract
This Tip describes the Fibre Channel addressing scheme.
Contents
Addressing
Each participant in the Fibre Channel environment has a unique ID, which is called the World Wide Name (WWN). This WWN is a 64-bit address, and if two WWN addresses are put into the frame header, this leaves 16 bytes of data just for identifying destination and source address. So 64-bit addresses can impact routing performance.
The 24-bit address scheme also removes the overhead of manual administration of addresses by allowing the topology itself to assign addresses. This is not like WWN addressing, in which the addresses are assigned to the manufacturers by the IEEE standards committee, and are built in to the device at build time, similar to naming a child at birth. If the topology itself assigns the 24-bit addresses, then somebody has to be responsible for the addressing scheme from WWN addressing to port addressing.
A 24-bit port address consists of three parts:
Each participant in the Fibre Channel environment has a unique ID, which is called the World Wide Name (WWN). This WWN is a 64-bit address, and if two WWN addresses are put into the frame header, this leaves 16 bytes of data just for identifying destination and source address. So 64-bit addresses can impact routing performance.
Because of this, there is another addressing scheme used in Fibre Channel networks. This scheme is used to address the ports in the switched fabric. Each port in the switched fabric has its own unique 24-bit address. With this 24-bit addressing scheme, we get a smaller frame header, and this can speed up the routing process. With this frame header and routing logic, the Fibre Channel fabric is optimized for high-speed switching of frames. With a 24-bit addressing scheme, this allows for up to 16 million addresses, which is an address space larger than any practical SAN design in existence in today’s world. This 24-bit address has to be connected somehow, to and with the 64-bit address associated with World Wide Names. We explain how this works in the following section.
Name and address
The 24-bit address scheme also removes the overhead of manual administration of addresses by allowing the topology itself to assign addresses. This is not like WWN addressing, in which the addresses are assigned to the manufacturers by the IEEE standards committee, and are built in to the device at build time, similar to naming a child at birth. If the topology itself assigns the 24-bit addresses, then somebody has to be responsible for the addressing scheme from WWN addressing to port addressing.
In the switched fabric environment, the switch itself is responsible for assigning and maintaining the port addresses. When the device with its WWN is logging into the switch on a specific port, the switch will assign the port address to that port, and the switch will also maintain the correlation between the port address and the WWN address of the device on that port. This function of the switch is implemented by using a name server.
The name server is a component of the fabric operating system, which runs inside the switch. It is essentially a database of objects in which fabric-attached device registers its values. Dynamic addressing also removes the potential element of human error in address maintenance, and provides more flexibility in additions, moves, and changes in the SAN.
Port address
A 24-bit port address consists of three parts:
- Domain (bits from 23 to 16)
- Area (bits from 15 to 08)
- Port or arbitrated loop physical address — AL_PA (bits from 07 to 00)
- Domain: The most significant byte of the port address is the domain. This is the address of the switch itself. One byte allows up to 256 possible addresses. Because some of these are reserved (like the one for broadcast) there are only 239 addresses actually available. This means that you can have as many as 239 switches in your SAN environment. The domain number allows each switch to have a unique identifier if you have multiple interconnected switches in your environment.
- Area: The area field provides 256 addresses. This part of the address is used to identify the individual FL_Ports supporting loops, or it can be used as the identifier for a group of F_Ports; for example, a card with more ports on it. This means that each group of ports has a different area number, even if there is only one port in the group.
- Port: The final part of the address provides 256 addresses for identifying attached N_Ports and NL_Ports.
Domain x Area x Ports
This means that there are 239 x 256 x 256 = 15,663,104 addresses available.
Special Notices
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