NPort ID Virtualization, Program Directed re-IPL

The requirements for channel extension equipment are simpliﬁ ed with the increased number of commands in

ﬂight. This may beneﬁ t z/OS Global Mirror (Extended Remote Copy – XRC) applications as the channel exten- sion kit is no longer required to simulate speciﬁ c channel commands. Simplifying the channel extension require- ments may help reduce the total cost of ownership of end- to-end solutions.

Extended distance FICON is transparent to operating sys- tems and applies to all the FICON Express2 and FICON Express4 features carrying native FICON trafﬁ c (CHPID type FC). For exploitation, the control unit must support the new IU pacing protocol. The channel will default to cur- rent pacing values when operating with control units that cannot exploit extended distance FICON.

Exploitation of extended distance FICON is supported by IBM System Storage DS8000 series Licensed Machine Code (LMC) level 5.3.1xx.xx (bundle version 63.1.xx.xx), or later.

To support extended distance without performance deg- radation, the buffer credits in the FICON director must be set appropriately. The number of buffer credits required is dependent upon the link data rate (1 Gbps, 2 Gbps, or 4 Gbps), the maximum number of buffer credits supported by the FICON director or control unit, as well as application and workload characteristics. High bandwidth at extended distances is achievable only if enough buffer credits exist to support the link data rate.

FICON Express enhancements for Storage Area Networks

N_Port ID Virtualization

N_Port ID Virtualization is designed to allow for sharing of a single physical FCP channel among multiple operating system images. Virtualization function is currently available for ESCON and FICON channels, and is now available for FCP channels. This function offers improved FCP channel

utilization due to fewer hardware requirements, and can reduce the complexity of physical FCP I/O connectivity.

Program Directed re-IPL

Program Directed re-IPL is designed to enable an operat- ing system to determine how and from where it had been loaded. Further, Program Directed re-IPL may then request that it be reloaded again from the same load device using the same load parameters. In this way, Program Directed re-IPL allows a program running natively in a partition to trigger a re-IPL. This re-IPL is supported for both SCSI and ECKD™ devices. z/VM 5.3 provides support for guest exploitation.

FICON Link Incident Reporting

FICON Link Incident Reporting is designed to allow an operating system image (without operating intervention) to register for link incident reports, which can improve the ability to capture data for link error analysis. The informa- tion can be displayed and is saved in the system log.

Serviceability Enhancements

Requests Node Identiﬁ cation Data (RNID) is designed to facilitate the resolution of ﬁ ber optic cabling problems. You can now request RNID data for a device attached to a native FICON channel.

Local Area Network (LAN) connectivity –

OSA-Express3 – the newest family of LAN adapters

The third generation of Open Systems Adapter-Express (OSA-Express3) features have been introduced to help reduce latency and overhead, deliver double the port den- sity of OSA-Express2, and provide increased throughput.