SAN Hardware Building Blocks- HBA

HBA-> Host Bus Adapter

 

› Servers connect to the SAN via their Host Bus Adapter, or HBA. This is often referred to as a "Fibre Channel card," or "Fibre Channel NIC." It is simply the SAN equivalent of a SCSI card (i.e., a SCSI HBA). Some HBAs may use fiber, and some HBAs may use copper. Regardless of the physical layer, the HBA is what is used to connect the servers to the SAN.

› Note that there are two main types of lasers in today's HBAs: OFC and Non-OFC. OFC (optical fiber control) devices use a hand-shaking method to ensure that they do not transmit a laser pulse if there is nothing connecting to the HBA. (This is for safety reasons, since a high-powered laser can cause permanent damage to your eyesight.) Non-OFC devices employ no such handshaking, and will transmit even if a device is not connected. Believe it or not, Non-O Although there are some fiber-optic-ready host adapters, most HBAs come with an electrical DB-9 or HSSD serial connector, so using them with fibe optic cables requires a Media Interface Adapter (MIA) to convert between electrical and optical signals. MIAs can also be used to convert electrical Fibre Channel devices for use with fiber optics.

› FC devices are actually quite common, due to the cost associated in making an OFC device. Therefore, please do not look directly into an HBA. You may regret it!

Note: To know more about HBA ,watch the below video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6oc1vvrNUA