SCSI IPL now a base function
The SCSI Initial Program Load (IPL) enablement feature,
first introduced on z990 in October of 2003, is no longer required. The function is now delivered as a part of the server Licensed Internal Code. SCSI IPL allows an IPL of an operating system from an
FCP Full fabric connectivity
FCP full fabric support means that any number of (single vendor) FCP directors/ switches can be placed between the server and an FCP/SCSI device, thereby allowing many “hops” through a Storage Area Network (SAN) for I/O connectivity. FCP full fabric connectivity enables mul- tiple FCP switches/directors on a fabric to share links and therefore provides improved utilization of
FICON and FCP for connectivity to disk, tape, and printers
High Performance FICON – improvement in performance and
RAS
Enhancements have been made to the z/Architecture and the FICON interface architecture to deliver optimiza- tions for online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads. When exploited by the FICON channel, the z/OS operating system, and the control unit, High Performance FICON for System z (zHPF) is designed to help reduce overhead and improve performance.
Additionally, the changes to the architectures offer end-
zHPF channel programs can be exploited by the OLTP I/O workloads – DB2, VSAM, PDSE, and zFS – which transfer small blocks of fi xed size data (4K blocks). zHPF imple- mentation by the IBM System Storage DS8000™ is exclu- sively for I/Os that transfer less than a single track of data.
The maximum number of I/Os is designed to be improved up to 100% for small data transfers that can exploit zHPF. Realistic production workloads with a mix of data transfer sizes can see up to 30 to 70% of FICON I/Os utilizing zHPF resulting in up to a 10 to 30% savings in channel utiliza- tion. Sequential I/Os transferring less than a single track size (for example, 12x4k bytes/IO) may also benefi t.
The FICON Express4 and FICON Express2 features will support both the existing FICON protocol and the zHPF protocol concurrently in the server Licensed Internal Code. High performance FICON is supported by z/OS for DB2, VSAM, PDSE, and zFS applications. zHPF applies to all FICON Express4 and FICON Express2 features (CHPID type FC) and is exclusive to System z10. Exploitation is required by the control unit.
IBM System Storage DS8000 Release 4.1 delivers new capabilities to support High Performance FICON for System z, which can improve FICON I/O throughput on a DS8000 port by up to 100%. The DS8000 series Licensed Machine Code (LMC) level 5.4.2xx.xx (bundle version 64.2.xx.xx), or later, is required.
Platform and name server registration in FICON channel
The FICON channel now provides the same information to the fabric as is commonly provided by open systems, registering with the name server in the attached FICON directors. With this information, your storage area net- work (SAN) can be more easily and effi ciently managed, enhancing your ability to perform problem determination and analysis.
Registration allows other nodes and/or SAN managers to query the name server to determine what is connected to the fabric, what protocols are supported (FICON, FCP) and to gain information about the System z10 using the attributes that are registered. The FICON channel is now designed to perform registration with the fi bre channel’s Management Service and Directory Service.
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