The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

Fibre Channel-Arbitrated Loop

    (FC-AL) A fast serial bus interface
   standard intended to replace SCSI on high-end servers.

   FC-AL has a number of advantages over SCSI.  It offers higher
   speed: the base speed is 100 megabytes per second, with 200,
   400, and 800 planned.  Many devices are dual ported, i.e., can
   be accessed through two independent ports, which doubles speed
   and increases fault tolerance.  Cables can be as long as 30 m
   (coaxial) or 10 km (optical).  FC-AL enables
   self-configuring and hot swapping and the maximum number
   of devices on a single port is 126.  Finally, it provides
   software compatibility with SCSI.

   Despite all these features FC-AL is unlikely to appear on
   desktops anytime soon, partly because its price, partly
   because typical desktop computers would not take advantage
   of many of the advanced features.  On these systems FireWire
   has more potential.

   [Current status?  Reference?]

   (1999-09-12)