Any vendor's switch will starts with 8 ports, 16 ports, 24 ports and

48 ports.
8 ports will come like a socket which can easily insert on a switch
and every port is a licensed one. If we want to procure a 8 ports
socket we have to contact to the switch vendor and have to buy
the ports with license.

The rate of data transfer in a switch is 8 GB/sec at max, if we

need to
increase the speed we have to do the trunking/ISL. We can also
change the port speed to 2, 4, 8 Gb/sec & auto mode.

In a switch the major activity will be the Zoning and also we do

trouble
shooting, ISL, Port Channeling and other works.

Zoning means Grouping of Host HBA WWPN and Storage Front

End
Ports WWPN to speak each other.

It uses the Server HBA WWN number and Storage Front End Port
WWN
number. Its also known as WWN Zoning. A major advantage of
WWN Zoning is its flexibility. It allows the SAN to be recabled
without re configuring the Zone information.

Below are the models for your reference

Brocade:
Switches: 6510, 6505, 5300, 5100, VA-40FC, 5000, 4900, 2400,
2800,
3800, 3900, 4100, 300, 200E
Directors: DCX 8510-8, DCX 8510-4, DCX, DCX-4S, 48000,
24000, 12000
Cisco:
Switches: Cisco MDS 9020, 9120, 9124, 9124e, 9134, 9140,
9148, 9216,
9216A, 9216i, 9222i, and 9250i
Directors: Cisco MDS 9506, 9509, 9513, and 9710
Mc-Data:
Switches: 3232, 4500, 4700
Directors: 6064, 6140, 10000

Components of an Intelligent Storage System

An intelligent storage system consists of four key components:
front end, cache, back end, and physical disks. An I/O
request received from the host at the front-end port is processed
through cache and the back end, to enable storage and retrieval
of data from the physical disk. A read request can be serviced
directly from cache if the requested data is found in cache.

front-end ports
The front-end ports enable hosts to connect to the intelligent
storage system.

back end ports

The back end controls data transfers between cache and the
physical disks. From cache, data is sent to the back end and then
routed to the destination disk. Physical disks are connected to
ports on the back end.

Read Operation with Cache

When a host issues a read request, the front-end controller
accesses the
TAG RAM to determine whether the required data is available in
cache. If the requested data is found in the cache, it is called a
read cache hit or read hit.

Read performance is measured in terms of the read hit ratio, or

the hit rate,
usually expressed as a percentage. This ratio is the number of
read hits with respect to the total number of read requests. A
higher read hit ratio improves the read performance.

Fibre Channel Ports

Ports on the switch can be one of the following types:

N_port: An end point in the fabric. This port is also known as the
node port.
Typically, it is a host port (HBA) or a storage array port that is
connected to a switch in a switched fabric.

NL_port: A node port that supports the arbitrated loop topology.

This port is also known as the node loop port.

E_port: An FC port that forms the connection between two FC

switches. This port is also known as the expansion port. The
E_port on an FC switch connects to the
E_port of another FC switch in the fabric through a link, which is
called an Inter-Switch Link (ISL). ISLs are used to transfer host-to-
storage data as well as the fabric management traffic from one
switch to another. ISL is also one of the scaling mechanisms in
SAN connectivity.

F_port: A port on a switch that connects an N_port. It is also

known as a fabric port and cannot participate in FC-AL.

FL_port: A fabric port that participates in FC-AL. This port is

connected to the NL_ports on an FC-AL loop. A FL_port also
connects a loop to a switch in a switched fabric. As a result, all
NL_ports in the loop can participate in FC-SW. This configuration is
referred to as a public loop. In contrast, an arbitrated loop without
any switches is referred to as a private loop. A private loop
contains nodes with NL_ports, and does not contain FL_port.

G_port: A generic port that can operate as an E_port or an F_port

and
determines its functionality automatically during initialization.

World Wide Names

Each device in the FC environment is assigned a 64-bit unique
identifier called the World Wide Name (WWN).

The Fibre Channel environment uses two types of WWNs: World

Wide Node Name (WWNN) and World Wide Port Name (WWPN).