HP Surestore 6164 Switch - Manual (Page 21)

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INTRODUCING EXTENDED FABRICS
Extended Fabrics allows you to use fibre channel technology to create a
fabric interconnected at a distance of up to 100 kilometers. You can use
Extended Fabrics to increase the allowable distance between two switches,
or between a switch and an ATM gateway in a Remote Switch
configuration.
Extended Fabrics optimizes the internal buffering algorithm for switches. It
provides maximum buffering between E_Ports connected over an extended
distance through buffer reconfiguration that results in line speed
performance of up to 95 MB per second for switches interconnected at
100 km, thus providing the highest possible performance for transfers
between switches. The fibre channel connection extensions are provided by
Extended Distance GBICs, fibre channel repeaters, or Wave Division
Multiplexing (WDM) devices.
Note Performance can vary depending on the condition of the fiber optic
connections between the switches. Losses due to splicing, connectors, tight
bends, and other degradation can affect the performance over the link and
the maximum distance possible.
To enable Extended Fabrics, you must configure every switch in the fabric
as long-distance extended fabric capable.