Networking

Strengthening the fabric of the on demand operating environment

OSA-Express4S – connectivity for LANs

Accessing intranets and the internet with OSA-Express4S

OSA-Express4S is designed for high-speed communication in the enterprise backbone or between campuses, to connect server farms, or to consolidate file servers onto zEnterprise EC12, zEnterprise 196, and zEnterprise 114 servers. The workload can be Internet Protocol-based (IP) or non-IP based. OSA-Express4S is an integrated hardware feature optimized for mainframe local area network (LAN) connectivity.

Direct Memory Access (DMA)

The OSA-Express4S and OSA-Express3 features along with the operating systems share a common storage area for memory-to-memory communication, reducing system overhead and improving performance. There are no read or write channel programs for data exchange. For write processing, no I/O interrupts have to be handled. For read processing, the number of I/O interrupts is minimized.

Hardware data router

With OSA-Express4S and OSA-Express3, much of what was previously done in licensed internal code (packet construction, inspection, and routing) is now performed in hardware. This allows packets to flow directly from host memory to the LAN without firmware intervention. With the hardware data router, the "store and forward" technique is no longer used, which enables true direct memory access, a direct host memory-to-LAN flow, returning CPU cycles for application use.

Port granularity for increased flexibility: The OSA-Express4S features have half the number of ports per feature compared to OSA-Express3. This design facilitates purchasing the right number of ports to help satisfy your application requirements and to better optimize for redundancy.

OSA-Express4S 10 GbE with one port per feature: The OSA-Express4S 10 GbE features have one CHPID per feature and one port associated with the CHPID. A feature can be configured to support CHPID type OSD or OSX.

OSA-Express4S 10 Gigabit Ethernet Long Reach (LR) is available for single mode fiber environments. OSA-Express4S 10 Gigabit Ethernet Short Reach (SR) is available for multimode fiber environments

OSA-Express4S GbE with two ports per feature: The OSA-Express4S GbE features have one CHPID per feature (CHPID type OSD) and two ports associated with the CHPID.

Note: CHPID type OSN (OSA-Express for NCP) is not being offered for the OSA-Express4S GbE features.

OSA-Express4S GbE long wavelength (LX) is available for single mode fiber environments. OSA-Express4S GbE short wavelength (SX) is available for multimode fiber environments.

OSA-Express4S 1000BASE-T Ethernet with two ports per feature: The OSA-Express4S 1000BASE-T Ethernet feature has one channel path identifier (CHPID) per feature and two ports associated with the CHPID. A feature can be configured to support CHPID type OSC, OSD, OSE, OSM or OSN.

OSA-Express4S Gigabit Ethernet LX (long wavelength) (#0404)

OSA-Express4S Gigabit Ethernet SX (short wavelength) (#0405)

OSA-Express4S 10 Gigabit Ethernet LR (#0406)

OSA-Express4S 10 Gigabit Ethernet SR (#0407)

OSA-Express4S 1000BASE-T Ethernet (#0408)

Contact IBM

Hardware

IBM provides world-class IBM mainframe technology to help today's enterprises respond quickly to evolving business conditions and with extreme flexibility. From automation to advanced virtualization technologies and open industry standards, IBM mainframes help deliver competitive advantages for enterprises contributing and succeeding on a smarter planet.

Operating Systems

IBM System z supports multiple operation systems:

Solutions

IBM's technology, solutions and industry expertise can help you find the competitive edge with a sharper understanding of your customers. Our System z solutions combine the foundation of IBM hardware, software and middleware with flexible financing and packaging options to help your business meet and overcome the challenges of doing business in the on demand world. IBM can help you develop a customer-centric view—and assist you in delivering the right solution and the right products.


News