We consider how fibre channel switches can be cascaded to form a fibre channel fabric. We begin with an analytical model of topology performance that provides a theoretical upper bound on fabric performance and a method for the practical evaluation of fabric topologies. We then consider the prevention of buffer-cycle deadlock in fibre channel networks. We show that though some topologies implicitly do not deadlock, these topologies have inferior throughput, and we present a technique for optimizing performance that takes into account both deadlock and traffic balancing.