The Enclosure Services Interface (ESI) is a computer protocol used in SCSI enclosures. This is part of a chain of connections that allows a host computer to communicate with the enclosure to access its power, cooling, and other non-data characteristics. This overall approach is called SCSI attached enclosure services:
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disk drives and tape drives, but it can connect a wide range of other devices, including scanners and CD drives, although not all controllers can handle all devices. The SCSI standard defines command sets for specific peripheral device types; the presence of "unknown" as one of these types means that in theory it can be used as an interface to almost any device, but the standard is highly pragmatic and addressed toward commercial requirements.
The host computer communicates with the disks in the enclosure via a Serial SCSI interface (which may be either FC-AL or SAS). One of the disk devices located in the enclosure is set up to allow SCSI Enclosure Services (SES) communication through a LUN. The disk-drive then communicates with the SES processor in the enclosure via ESI. The data sent over the ESI interface is simply the contents of a SCSI command and the response to that command.
Arbitrated Loop, also known as FC-AL, is a Fibre Channel topology in which devices are connected in a one-way loop fashion in a ring topology. Historically it was a lower-cost alternative to a fabric topology. It allowed connection of many servers and computer storage devices without using then very costly Fibre Channel switches. The cost of the switches dropped considerably, so by 2007, FC-AL had become rare in server-to-storage communication. It is however still common within storage systems.
In computing, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a point-to-point serial protocol that moves data to and from computer-storage devices such as hard drives and tape drives. SAS replaces the older Parallel SCSI bus technology that first appeared in the mid-1980s. SAS, like its predecessor, uses the standard SCSI command set. SAS offers optional compatibility with Serial ATA (SATA), versions 2 and later. This allows the connection of SATA drives to most SAS backplanes or controllers. The reverse, connecting SAS drives to SATA backplanes, is not possible.
Most recent SCSI enclosure products support a protocol called SCSI Enclosure Services (SES). The initiator can communicate with the enclosure using a specialized set of SCSI commands to access power, cooling, and other non-data characteristics.
In fault-tolerant enclosures, more than one disk-drive slot has ESI enabled to allow SES communications to continue even after the failure of any of the disk-drives.
ESI electrical interface
The ESI interface was designed to make use of the seven existing "SEL_n" address signals which are used at power-on time for establishing the address (ALPA) of a disk-drive. An extra eighth signal called "-PARALLEL ESI" is used to switch the function of the SEL_n signals.
Communication between devices in a fibre channel network uses different elements of Fibre Channel standards.
Signal name
Function
SEL_0/D0
Data bus bit 0
SEL_1/D1
Data bus bit 1
SEL_2/D2
Data bus bit 2
SEL_3/D3
Data bus bit 3
SEL_4/-ENCL_ACK
The enclosure clocks this to acknowledge a read or write data transfer
SEL_5/-DSK_RD
The disk-drive clocks this to send a NIBL of data to the enclosure
SEL_6/-DSK_WR
The disk-drive clocks this to receive a NIBL of data from the enclosure
ESI command sequence
A SCSI Send Diagnostic command or Receive Diagnostic Results command is sent from the host computer to the disk-drive to initiate an SES transfer. The Disk-drive then asserts "-PARALLEL ESI" to begin this sequence of ESI bus phases:
Phase
Function
Discovery phase
Disk-drive tests that the enclosure is SFF-8067 compliant
Command phase
Disk-drive sends the SCSI CDB to the enclosure (similar to the write phase)
Either
Read phase
Disk-drive sends diagnostic page data to the enclosure
or
Write phase
Disk-drive receives diagnostic page data from the enclosure
Finally, the disk-drive deasserts "-PARALLEL ESI".
The above sequence is just a simple implementation of a 4-bit wide parallel interface which is used to execute a SCSI transaction. If the CDB is for a Send Diagnostic command then the data is sent to a SCSI diagnostic page in the enclosure. If the CDB is for a SCSI Receive Diagnostic Results command then the data is received from a SCSI diagnostic page. No other CDB types are allowed.
SCSI target devices provide a number of SCSI diagnostic pages. These can be used by a Send Diagnostic command to tell a target device to run a specialised self-test. The Receive Diagnostic Results command is used where the results from the self-test operation are non-trivial.
SSA enclosures use an interface called DSI which is similar to ESI
SCSI standalone enclosure services is a computer protocol used mainly with disk storage enclosures. It allows a host computer to communicate with the enclosure to access its power, cooling, and other non-data characteristics.
Serial Storage Architecture (SSA) was a serial transport protocol used to attach disk drives to server computers.
Specifications
The definition of the ESI protocols is owned by an ANSI committee and defined in their specifications ANSI SFF-8067 and ANSI SFF-8045.
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