A Real-Time Fibre Channel Switch

Fibre Channel(FC) is a high-bandwidth, high-performance network technology which is gaining market momentum in both commercial and military arenas. For routing topology flexibility, today's system area networks require switches. To date, however, the FCtechnology has not been developed to efficiently support real-time quality of service (i.e., guaranteed bandwidth and latency) in a switched environment. Such real-time quality of service is needed to meet future commercial and military requirements. InPhase 1, we determined that virtual circuits would meet our goal of developing a real-time FC switch. We further specified the architecture and protocol necessary to implement switch FC virtual circuits. For Phase 2, with a combination of FasTrack andSBIR funds, we propose to build a 4x4 prototype FC virtual circuitry real-time quality of service switch. The tasks will be comprised of completing the engineering and protocol design specifications, keeping the FasTrack-funded and SBIR-funded taskssynchronized, developing the prototype switch hardware and firmware components, integrating the prototype switch components, testing and debugging the prototype switch, and conducting a final demonstration of the prototype switch. The prototype will bedesigned such that it can be moved into an ASIC implementation during the post-Phase 2 activities. Fibre Channel was a $1+ billion industry in 1999. Estimates are that by 2010 Fibre Channel will be a $10-20 billion industry. Applications that can makeuse of a real-time quality of service switch include system/storage area networks, tape/disk jukeboxes, video broadcasters, videoconferencing, real-time systems(avionics, data acquisitions, etc.), e-commerce transactions, and interactive databases(airline/hotel/car reservations,. credit card processing, banking, etc.). Since commercial Fibre Channel switch companies do not currently support real-time quality of service switch include system/storage area networks, tape/disk jukeboxes, videobroadcasters, videoconferencing, real-time systems (avionics, data acquisition, etc.), e-commerce transactions, and interactive databases (airline/hotel/car reservations,. credits card processing, banking, etc.). Since commercial Fibre Channel switchcompanies do not currently support real-time quality of service in their products, our switch's capabilities will meet future demanding commercial and military real-time network requirements.