Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION
The PCI ESCON Adapter from Bus-Tech, Inc. is a high performance adapter that enables PCI-based systems to communicate with mainframe systems through direct IBM channel attachment. The ESCON adapter acts as a control unit for Enterprise Systems Connections (ESCON); providing high speed throughput and excellent processing efficiencies for applications that require high-speed connectivity between a server and a mainframe. ESCON channel compatibility is guaranteed by the use of IBM’s ESCON chipset.
The ESCON adapter can be configured to emulate the architecture of many different device controllers. The ESCON adapter includes an onboard Intel 960 processor. The control unit emulations are implemented directly on the 960 processor which allows the PCI host CPU to focus on data block transfers and not channel interrupt processing. This efficient, interrupt driven structure is utilized to avoid the CPU overhead incurred by traditional operating system approaches. To further enhance processing efficiency, the on-board data buffering capability allows the ESCON adapter to respond to channel activity even when the PCI bus is temporarily busy. Data from the channel can be buffered into on-board memory and made available to the PCI bus when it is available. The use of modular firmware routines allows new implementations to be developed quickly and proficiently. Due to the modularity, the channel and PCI interface routines can be easily modified to adapt to changing hardware and software requirements. The ESCON adapter is designed to accommodate standardized, mainstream channel applications as well as non-standard applications that use proprietary data transfer protocols.
Server Software
The PCI ESCON Adapter has been designed to support a wide variety of software operating environments and communications gateways. Software currently offered and /or supported by Bus-Tech for use with the PCI ESCON Adapter includes:
-Microsoft’s Host Integration Server (Windows 2000 and Windows NT)
-Microsoft’s SNA Server for Windows NT (Windows 2000 and Windows NT)
-IBM’s Communications Server for Windows 2000 and Windows NT
-Bus-Tech’s TCP/IP Passthrough for Windows NT
-Bus-Tech’s MPC+ for Windows (Windows 2000 and Windows NT)