What is Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop?
Arbitrated loop is a shared architecture, which supports 100MBps or 200MBps full duplex speed. Analogous to token ring, multiple servers or storage devices can attach to the same loop segment. Up to 126 devices may be attached to a FC-AL, although the majority of arbitrated loops are deployed with from 4 to 30 devices. Since the loop is a shared transport, devices must arbitrate for access to the loop before sending data. Fibre Channel provides a superset of commands to provide orderly access and ensure data integrity.
