ess Resolution Protocol (ARP) and Reverse Address Resolution Protocol (RARP). From a topology standpoint, it can accommodate dedicated bandwidth point-to-point circuits, shared bandwidth loop circuits, or scalable bandwidth switched circuits equally well. It offers extremely low-latency connections and connectionless service. The standard allows the automatic self-discovery of the specific Fibre Channel topology. It offers the flexibility of choosing between true connection service or fractional bandwidth and con- nection-oriented virtual circuits to guarantee the quality of service (QoS) for mission-critical oper- ations such as backups. It can be instantaneously set up. This is done fast SO the setup time is short enough to be measured in microseconds when a system uses the hardware-enhanced Fibre Channel protocol. It supports time-synchronous applications such as video, using fractional bandwidth virtual circuits. It provides efficient, high-bandwidth, and low-latency transfers using variable-length (0 to 2KB) frames. It is important to realize the following characteristics in a Fibre Channel environment that contains a mix of both SCSI and IP: Native Fibre Channel storage devices as well as servers and workstations connect directly on the Fibre Channel. SCSI storage devices are connected onto the Fibre Channel by Fibre-Channel-to-SCSI bridges. The IP protocol is only used for server-to-server and client-to-server connections. Enterprise-wide Fibre Channel switches consolidate the various workgroups and departmental com- puting or storage environments in a hub-and-spoke approach to ultimately provide one scalable con- solidated storage network that allows the sharing of storage across the whole organization. According to the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA), a Fibre Channel can routinely serv- ice critical database environments delivering a sustained bandwidth of over 200 MBps for large files while servicing thousands of simultaneous I/O requests. These numbers are important as they give us an idea of