Qlogic SANblade QLA2342, User Manual

FC5054602-00  A

1-1

Section 1      

Introduction

1.1

How to Use this Guide

The SANblade

™

 QLogic host bus adapters (HBAs) supported in this document are 

described in the following paragraphs. They are collectively referred to as the 

QLA2342/2342L HBA 

unless otherwise noted. 

■

QLA2342

 (dual channel, full-height bracket, optical media)

■

QLA2342L

 (dual channel, low-profile bracket, optical media)

The QLA2342/2342L HBA are 64-bit, 133-MHz PCI-X to Fibre Channel optical 
media. 

First, install the QLA2342/2342L HBA according to the directions in the appropriate 
hardware installation section. Secondly, install the software driver according the 
directions in the associated readme.txt file.

1.2

General Description

Thank you for selecting the QLA2342/2342L

Fibre Channel (FC) HBA. The 

QLA2342/2342L

HBA is an intelligent, high-performance, DMA bus master host 

adapter designed for high-end systems. The intelligence and performance are 
derived from the ISP23

xx

 chips, making the QLA2342/2342L

HBA a leading-edge 

host adapter. The ISP23

xx

 combines a powerful RISC processor, a Fibre Channel 

protocol manager (FPM) with one or more 2-Gb Fibre Channel transceivers, and a 
peripheral component interconnect-extended (PCI-X) local bus interface in a 
single-chip solution. The QLA2342/2342L HBA supports all FC peripherals that 
support private loop direct attach (PLDA) and fabric loop attach (FLA). Installation 
of the QLA2342/2342L HBA is quick and easy.

1.3

What is Fibre Channel?

Fibre Channel technology is outlined in the 

SCSI-3 Fibre Channel Protocol

(SCSI-FCP) standard. Fibre Channel is a high-speed data transport technology 
used for mass storage and networking. It connects mainframes, super computers, 
workstations, storage devices, and servers.

Fibre Channel supports data transfer rates up to 200 MBps half-duplex and 
400 MBps full-duplex on copper and optical interfaces. The QLA2342/2342L HBAs 
use a multimode optical interface for intermediate distances (less than 500 meters 
at the data rate of 1 Gbps; less than 300 meters at the data rate of 2 Gbps).