I/O Connectivity

FICON Express8 - 2, 4, or 8 Gbps
The FICON Express8 features help you prepare your I/O infrastructure for the future. FICON Express8 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 on System z (zHPF), as well as providing the ability to autonegotiate to the link data rates of 2 and 4 Gbps which may be required for existing infrastructures.

FICON Express8:

• Allows for the consolidation of existing FICON Express, FICON Express2, and FICON Express4 channels onto fewer FICON Express8 channels while maintaining and enhancing performance
• Performance improvements for native FICON, High Performance FICON for System z (zHPF), and Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) ensures the System z10 servers continue to allow your systems to grow as your business grows
• Up to 84 features (336 channels) on z10 EC and up to 32 features (128 channels) on z10 BC
• Each channel operates at 2, 4, or 8 Gbps autonegotiated.
• FICON Express8 10KM LX for the single mode fiber optic cabling (9 micron) terminated with LC Duplex connectors
• FICON Express8 SX for the multimode fiber optic cabling (50 or 62.5 micron) terminated with LC Duplex connectors

FICON Express8 channels
Each z10 EC and z10 BC FICON Express8 channel has four channels per feature
The z10 BC servers continue to have available the two-channel features (FICON Express4-2C SX and FICON Express4-2C 4KM LX) that provide attractive entry pricing.

Each FICON Express8 channel has two possible modes of operation designed for connectivity to servers, switches/directors, disks, tapes, 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

FICON Express8 software support
When FICON Express8 channels (CHPID type FC) are defined as FICON or channel-to-channel (CTC) the following minimum operating system support is required on System z10:

• z/OS V1.7 with the IBM Lifecycle Extension for z/OS V1.7 (5637-A01)
• z/VM V5.3
• z/VSE V4.1
• z/TPF V1.1
• TPF V4.1 at PUT 16
• Linux on System z distributions:
  • Novell SUSE SLES 9, SLES 10, and SLES 11
  • Red Hat RHEL 4 and RHEL 5

When FICON Express8 channels (CHPID type FC) are supporting zHPF single-track operations the following minimum operating system support is required on System z10:

• z/OS V1.8, V1.9, or V1.10 with PTFs
• z/OS V1.7 with the IBM Lifecycle Extension for z/OS V1.7 (5637-A01) with PTFs
• Linux on System z distributions:
  • IBM is working with its Linux distribution partners to include support in future Linux on System z distribution releases.

When FICON Express8 channels (CHPID type FC) are supporting zHPF multitrack operations the following minimum operating system support is required on System z10:

• z/OS V1.9 and V1.10 with PTFs.

When FICON Express8 channels (CHPID type FCP) are defined to support SCSI devices the following minimum operating system support is required on System z10:

• z/VM V5.3.
• z/VSE V4.1.
• Linux on System z distributions:
  • Novell SUSE SLES 9, SLES 10, and SLES 11.
  • Red Hat RHEL 4 and RHEL 5.