I/O Connectivity

FICON Express8S - 2, 4, or 8 Gbps

The FICON Express8S features help you prepare your I/O infrastructure for the future. FICON Express8S continues the tradition of offering more capabilities with each new generation of FICON channel. The features were designed with the future in mind, while remembering the past, by supporting the data serving leadership of System z and enabling improved data access using High Performance FICON for System z (zHPF), as well as providing the ability to autonegotiate to the link data rates of 2 or 4 Gbps which may be required for existing infrastructures.

FICON Express8S:

  • Allows for the consolidation of existing FICON Express, FICON Express2, FICON Express4, and FICON Express8 channels onto fewer FICON Express8S channels while maintaining and enhancing performance.
  • Offers performance improvements for High Performance FICON for System z (zHPF), and Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) to ensure the zEnterprise EC12, zEnterprise 196 and zEnterprise 114 servers continue to allow your bandwidth to increase to meet the demands of your business applications.
  • Operates at 2, 4, or 8 Gbps autonegotiated.
  • Has a feature supporting single mode fiber optic cabling (9 micron) terminated with an LC Duplex connector - FICON Express8S 10KM LX.
  • Has a feature supporting multimode fiber optic cabling (50 or 62.5 micron) terminated with an LC Duplex connector - FICON Express8S SX.

FICON Express8S channels

Each zEC12, z196, or z114 FICON Express8S channel has two channels (ports) per feature.

Each FICON Express8S channel has two possible modes of operation designed for connectivity to servers, switches/directors, disk, tape, and printers:

  1. CHPID type FC – FICON, zHPF, and channel-to-channel (CTC) traffic for the z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE, z/TPF, and Linux on System z environments
  2. CHPID type FCP - Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) for attachment to SCSI devices for the z/VM, z/VSE, and Linux on System z environments

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IBM System z supports multiple operation systems:

Through its hybrid computing capability, IBM zEnterprise with IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter® Extension (zBX) also supports IBM® AIX® on Power, Microsoft Windows® and Linux® on System x®

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Cables

Do you have the appropriate FICON jumpers, patch cables, and conversion kits for your server? For all your cabling needs see the System z Fiber Cabling Services in the IBM Resource Link Services section (registration required)

IBM education

Are you ready for FICON? Learn about FICON Planning, Operation, Implementation, and Problem Determination, Course #ES326