The Fabric is most often a switch or series of switches that takes the responsibility for routing. Has shared bandwidth, distributed topology. Does not need a switched Fabric, so less expensive than cross-point. Provides the highest performance and connectivity of the three topologies. Provides efficient sharing of available bandwidth.
Connectivity is guaranteed without congestion.
Generic Fabric requirements are defined in the FC-FG standard. Switch Fabric characteristics are defined in the FC-SW standard. The topology of the Fibre Channel network is transparent to the attached devices. The Fibre Channel ports involved in a given link negotiate the means and nature of the connection or transmission. All topologies are fully interoperable.