ELECTRIC DEVICE ADAPTABLE FOR FIBRE CHANNEL ARBITRATED LOOP AND METHOD FOR DETECTING WRONG CONDITION IN FC-AL

摘要

PURPOSE: To provide a method for detecting a fault in a FC-AL(fiber channel arbitration loop) system that can efficiently detect a loop fault with a low error rate not reaching out-of-synchronism and identify the fault location. CONSTITUTION: A device compatible with the FC-AL system is provided with a transmission section having a function of judging whether or not output processing is performed in its own port and transmitting a diagnostic frame with priority when no output processing is performed or transmitting an output processing signal with priority and with a reception section having a function of detecting a loop fault by always applying CRC check to a received frame and aborting the received frame after applying the CRC check when the received frame is the diagnostic frame. Thus, each device compatible with the FC-AL system connected to the loop always applies CRC check to the received frame to supervise the occurrence of a loop fault. Thus, the device compatible with the FC-AL system detecting a fault reports the occurrence of the fault so as to quickly detect even a loop fault with a low error rate and identify the fault location.