McDATA Sphereon 4500 - Manual (Page 190)

g-2 McDATA® Sphereon™ 4500 Fabric Switch Product Manager User Manual
Glossary
ALPA Arbitrated Loop Physical Address.
ANSI American National Standards Institute: an organization that provides
voluntary standards in the United States.
application-specific
integrated circuit
(ASIC)
A circuit designed for a specific application or purpose, such as
implementing the lower-layer Fibre Channel protocol (FC-0). ASICs
differ from general purpose devices such as memory chips or
microprocessors.
alias server Fabric software facility that supports multicast group management.
arbitrated loop One of the three connection topologies offered by Fibre Channel. Up
to 126 node ports and one fabric port can communicate without the
need for a separate switched fabric. See also point to point.
arbitration Process of selecting one device from a collection of devices that
request service simultaneously.
audit log Log summarizing actions (audit trail) made by the user.
authentication Verification of identity for a person or process.
B
backplane The backplane provides 48 VDC power distribution and connections
for all logic cards.
backup FRU When an active FRU fails, an identical backup FRU takes over
operation automatically (failover) to maintain switch and Fibre
Channel link operation.
beaconing Use of light-emitting diodes on ports, port cards, field-replaceable
units, and switches to aid in the fault-isolation process; when
enabled, active beaconing will cause LEDs to flash for faulty
components.
ber See bit error rate.
bidirectional In Fibre Channel, the capability to simultaneously communicate at
maximum speeds (100 Mbps) in both directions over a link.