Fibre Channel is a storage connectivity; it is serial and can be run over long distance. Fibre Channel’s flexibility is demonstrated in its range of topologies—point-to-point, switched fabric, or arbitrated loop (ring)—as well as its range of supported upper layer protocols, which include IP and SCSI. Its host bus adapter (HBA) plugs into a PCI slot and may use either fiber or copper wires.
Fibre Channel’s primary competitor in the storage market is InfiniBand, particularly through iSER.
