Switched fabric, switching fabric, or just fabric, is a network topology where network nodes connect with each other via one or more network switches (particularly via crossbar switches, hence the name). The term is popular in telecommunication, Fibre Channel storage area networks and other high-speed networks, including RapidIO and InfiniBand. The term is in contrast to a broadcast medium, such as early forms of Ethernet. Switched fabrics can offer better total throughput than broadcast networks because traffic is spread across multiple physical links.
A generation of high-speed serial interconnects that appeared in 2001-2004 and provide point-to-point connectivity between processor and peripheral devices are sometimes referred to as fabrics; however, they lack features such as a message passing protocol. HyperTransport, for example, continues to maintain a processor bus focus even after adopting a higher speed physical layer. Similarly, PCI Express is just a serial version of PCI; it adheres to PCI’s host/peripheral load/store DMA-based architecture on top of a serial physical and link layer.
Read more about Switched Fabric: Switched Fabric in Fibre Channel
Famous quotes containing the words switched and/or fabric:
“When I am on a stage, I am the focus of thousands of eyes and it gives me strength. I feel that something, some energy, is flowing from the audience into me. I actually feel stronger because of these waves. Now when the play’s done, the eyes taken away, I feel just as if a circuit’s been broken. The power is switched off. I feel all gone and empty inside of me—like a balloon that’s been pricked and the air’s let out.”
—Lynn Fontanne (1887–1983)
“It is not a piece of fine feminine Spitalfields silk—but is of the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships’ cables & hausers. A Polar wind blows through it, & birds of prey hover over it. Warn all gentle fastidious people from so much as peeping into the book—on risk of a lumbago & sciatics.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)