Fibre Channel Protocol Architecture
Fibre Channel Layered Model
FC-3: Common Services
FC-3 is an “expandable” layer that is designed to
support services, such as :
Authentication
Encryption
Compression
Link multiplexing
ULPs
Disk mirroring
FC-4
Virtualization
FC-3 Common Services
T11 group are responsible for FC-SP
FC-2 Framing & flow control
tasked with looking at FCsec
FC-1 Encoding
similar to IPsec
FC-0 Physical Interface
FC-3 is responsible for common services:
FC-3 deals with authentication, encryption, key distribution, etc.
FCsec is analogous to IPsec.
Can encrypt Fibre Channel payload.
Distribute key services.
Can be used for authentication.
3 options are DHCHAP, FCAP or FCPAP.
The preferred method for authentication is CHAP.
Encryption and authentication are now available from the majority of
vendors but no-one has introduced compression yet.
There is no standard for ISL trunking so, although this is a work in
progress, it is not being used.