IBM Z10 EC Ficon Express4 and Ficon Express2 Performance, Concurrent Update, Modes of Operation

The System z10 EC Model E12 is limited to 64 features

–any combination of FICON Express4, FICON Express2 and FICON Express LX and SX features.

The FICON Express4, FICON Express2 and FICON Express feature conforms to the Fibre Connection (FICON) architecture and the Fibre Channel (FC) architecture, pro- viding connectivity between any combination of servers, directors, switches, and devices in a Storage Area Network (SAN). Each of the four independent channels (FICON Express only supports two channels per feature) is capa- ble of 1 Gigabit per second (Gb/sec), 2 Gb/sec, or 4 Gb/sec (only FICON Express4 supports 4 Gbps) depend- ing upon the capability of the attached switch or device. The link speed is auto-negotiated, point-to-point, and is transparent to users and applications. Not all switches and devices support 2 or 4 Gb/sec link data rates.

FICON Express4 and FICON Express2 Performance

Your enterprise may benefi t from FICON Express4 and FICON Express2 with:

•Increased data transfer rates (bandwidth)

•Improved performance

•Increased number of start I/Os

•Reduced backup windows

•Channel aggregation to help reduce infrastructure costs

For more information about FICON, visit the IBM Redbooks® Web site at: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/ search for SG24-5444. There are also various FICON I/O Connectivity information at: www-03.ibm.com/systems/z/connectivity/.

Concurrent Update

The FICON Express4 SX and LX features may be added to an existing z10 EC concurrently. This concurrent update capability allows you to continue to run workloads through other channels while the new FICON Express4 features are being added. This applies to CHPID types FC and FCP.

Continued Support of Spanned Channels and Logical

Partitions

The FICON Express4 and FICON Express2, FICON and FCP (CHPID types FC and FCP) channel types, can be defi ned as a spanned channel and can be shared among logical partitions within and across LCSSs.

Modes of Operation

There are two modes of operation supported by FICON Express4 and FICON Express2 SX and LX. These modes are confi gured on a channel-by-channel basis – each of the four channels can be confi gured in either of two sup- ported modes.

•Fibre Channel (CHPID type FC), which is native FICON or FICON Channel-to-Channel (server-to-server)

•Fibre Channel Protocol (CHPID type FCP), which sup- ports attachment to SCSI devices via Fibre Channel switches or directors in z/VM, z/VSE, and Linux on System z10 environments

Native FICON Channels

Native FICON channels and devices can help to reduce bandwidth constraints and channel contention to enable easier server consolidation, new application growth, large business intelligence queries and exploitation of On Demand Business.

The FICON Express4, FICON Express2 and FICON Express channels support native FICON and FICON Channel-to-Channel (CTC) traffi c for attachment to serv- ers, disks, tapes, and printers that comply with the FICON architecture. Native FICON is supported by all of the z10 EC operating systems. Native FICON and FICON CTC are defi ned as CHPID type FC.

Because the FICON CTC function is included as part of the native FICON (FC) mode of operation, FICON CTC is not limited to intersystem connectivity (as is the case with ESCON), but will support multiple device defi nitions.

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