A World Wide Name (WWN) is a unique identifier that is assigned to a manufacturer by the
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and hard-coded
into a Fibre Channel (FC) device.
WWNs are important when setting up a storage area network (SAN). Each
device has to be registered with the SAN by its WWN before the SAN will recognize it. (In fact, if
the SAN has trouble recognizing a device, the WWN registration is usually one of the first things
an administrator will check.) The names are usually 128 binary digits (bits) long, but could be 64
bits if the device is older.
A WWN is similar in concept to a network card's media access control (MAC) address in an
Internet protocol (IP)
network, but is formatted differently.
This was last updated in May 2011
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