This technical report, in combination with technical report FC-MI-3, covers the same scope as, but does not replace, technical report FC-MI. This technical report includes, corrects, and extends to cover more recent standards, the guidelines specified by FC-MI for end devices. Technical report FC-MI- 3 serves the same purpose for fabric elements.

Another objective of this technical report is to simplify implementations and their associated documentation, testing, and support requirements. As a result there may be some optional features of the referenced ANSI INCITS standards that are not mutually exclusive, but are prohibited or required for the purpose of this simplification. Features that some, but not all, of the referenced ANSI INCITS standards require for compliance may be optional in this technical report. Each specification of such an optional feature in this technical report identifies the referenced ANSI INCITS standards for which the feature is required.

Internal characteristics of conformant implementations are not defined by this technical report. This technical report incorporates features from the standards described in clause 2.