exactly the same protocol ??

[Black_David@emc.com]

With my WG co-chair hat off, it seems that Robert
Snively and I have different notions of what
"exactly the same protocol" means.  It would have
been nice if FC-AL and FC-SW  were exactly the
same protocol, as it would have saved EMC and a
number of other companies a considerable amount
of software/firmware development time and effort.

FC-AL and FC-SW are different protocols at the FC-2
level that do not interoperate - a device that only
speaks FC-AL cannot communicate with a device that
only speaks FC-SW and vice-versa.  FCP (which
encapsulates SCSI for Fibre Channel) is an FC-4 level
upper layer protocol that runs over both FC-AL and
FC-SW.  I don't believe that there are any disk
drives that speak FC-SW.

--David

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David L. Black, Senior Technologist
EMC Corporation, 42 South St., Hopkinton, MA  01748
+1 (508) 435-1000 x75140, FAX: +1 (508) 497-6909
black_david@emc.com  Cellular: +1 (978) 394-7754
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