Fibre Channel gives us a huge mass of new terms, acronyms and English derivatives. Imagine that you distilled the technology sector's proclivity for acronyms and naming conventions into one thick, cloying liquid -- you'd have the terminology used to describe Fibre Channel.

For example, FC-AL means Fibre Channel arbitrated loop. Every Fibre Channel "end" device -- hard disks, tape drives or host bus adapters, for instance -- has a connection called a port. There are two kinds of ports: node ports and node-loop ports, which are abbreviated as N_ports and NL_ports, respectively. An N_port is the port by which a Fibre Channel device communicates to fabric port on a switch. An NL_port is an N_port that is capable of communicating on an arbitrated loop.

On the switch side of things, there are fabric ports and fabric-loop ports, abbreviated as F_ports and FL_ports, respectively. N_port devices connect to F_ports on a switch for a fabric connection. NL_port devices connect to a switch port in FL_port mode or to another NL_port device to provide arbitrated-loop operations. And to make life a bit more difficult, there is also an F/NL_port (fabric/node-loop port), which, in a pinch, can provide certain fabric services to other NL_port devices.

And just when you think the insanity will end, there is L_port, which is a generic term for any Fibre Channel port that supports arbitrated-loop operation. So remember: Ns are on the end devices; Fs are on the switches; the term L_port is a generalization. And we all know what we think of generalities. Got it?