IBM z/OS specification

GDPS/PPRC management for open systems LUNs (Logi- cal Unit Numbers): GDPS/PPRC technology has been extended to manage a heterogeneous environment of z/OS and open systems data. If installations share their disk subsystems between the z/OS and open systems platforms, GDPS/PPRC, running in a z/OS system, can manage the PPRC status of devices that belong to the other platforms and are not even deﬁ ned to the z/OS platform. GDPS/PPRC can also provide data consistency across both z/OS and open systems data.

GDPS/PPRC management of open systems LUNs became generally available February 2004.

GDPS supports PPRC over FCP links: In 2003, IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) announced support of PPRC over Fiber Channel for the ESS Model

800.Refer to Hardware Announcement 103-298, (RFA38991) dated October 14, 2003. This support is designed to provide improved throughput (compared to ESCON), and a reduction in cross-site connectivity (two PPRC Channel links per ESS are considered sufﬁ cient for most customer workloads). One of the potential beneﬁ ts of this support is the ability for customers to increase the distance between sites while maintaining acceptable per- formance.

GDPS/PPRC support for PPRC over Channel became gen- erally available February 2004.

GDPS supports FlashCopy® V2 elimination of the Logical SubSystem (LSS) constraint: In 2003, IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server announced support of FlashCopy V2. (Refer to Hardware Announcement 103- 141, dated May 13, 2003.) Prior to this announcement, both source and target volumes had to reside on the same

LSS within the disk subsystem. Since this constraint has been removed with FlashCopy V2, GDPS can now allow a FlashCopy from a source in one LSS to a target in a differ- ent LSS within the same disk subsystem. This new ﬂ exibil- ity can help simplify administration and capacity planning for FlashCopy.

GDPS/PPRC support for FlashCopy V2 became generally available February 2004.

GDPS/PPRC and Cross-site Parallel Sysplex distance extended to up to 100 km: On October 31, 2003, IBM deliv- ered, via a Request for Price Quote (RPQ), the capability to conﬁ gure GDPS/PPRC or a multi-site Parallel Sysplex up to a distance of up to 100 kilometers (62 miles) between two sites. This extended distance can potentially decrease the risk that the same disaster will affect both sites, thus permitting enterprises to recover production applications at another site. Support has been extended up to a dis- tance of up to 100 km from the current capability of up to

50 km (31 miles) for:

•External Time Reference (ETR) links

•An ETR link on a zSeries or S/390 server provides attachment to the Sysplex Timer

•InterSystem Channel-3 (ISC-3) links operating in Peer Mode ISC-3 links, supported on all zSeries servers, con- nect z/OS and OS/390 systems to Coupling Facilities in a Parallel Sysplex environment.

The extended distance support for ETR and ISC-3 links is now consistent with other cross-site link technologies that currently support up to 100 km between two sites (such as FICON, Peer-to-Peer Remote Copy (PPRC), Peer-to- Peer Virtual Tape Server (PtP VTS)). It should be noted that the maximum ﬁ ber optic cable distance between a pair