IBM Tape Solutions for Storage Area Networks and FICON

Chapter 6. FICON attachment of IBM tapes 143

The smallest configuration has 24 Fibre Channel ports. The number of ports can be

increased to a maximum of 64 ports by adding 4-port modules, which are available in three

forms:

򐂰 Four shortwave ports for distances up to 500 m

򐂰 Four longwave ports for distances up to 10 km

򐂰 Three shortwave ports and one longwave port

You can intermix the modules in any combination.

The Director is housed in an IBM 2032-C36 (McDATA FC-512) cabinet, which can hold up to

four Directors.

IBM 2042-1 Director

The IBM 2042-1 is an INRANGE FC/9000 with 64 ports, upgradable to 128. It may act as a

FICON Director and as a Fibre Channel Director concurrently. The Director provides a wide

range of configuration options. A single I/O module provides eight Fibre Channel ports, with

each port capable of delivering up to 100 MB/sec, full-duplex data transfer. I/O modules are

available with:

򐂰 Eight shortwave ports

򐂰 Eight longwave ports

򐂰 Four shortwave ports and four longwave ports

The 6,400 MB/sec transmission bandwidth supports full nonblocking 64-port switch

performance.

Other configuration options include shortwave laser Gigabit Interface Convertors (GBIC)

(enabling a transmission distance of up to 500 meters) and longwave laser GBICs (enabling a

transmission distance of up to 10 kilometers) for a maximum of 64 GBICs. One or two

Directors can reside in a single cabinet, which supports up to 128 ports in a floor space of six

square feet.

The Director features redundant power supplies and cooling fans, along with redundant active

components that support automatic failover. Other high-availability capabilities include hot

swapping for all field-replaceable units, nondisruptive microcode updates, and automatic fault

detection and isolation.

In addition, call-home and e-mail capabilities automatically alert support and maintenance

personnel to accelerate problem resolution.

This Director supports direct FC-AL attachment using FL ports.

6.2.4 FICON control units

Control units may be attached by using direct fiber connection between the control unit and

FICON channel or through Directors, either FICON Directors or ESCON Directors with

FICON bridge cards. The use of Directors provides greater flexibility for configuration and

reconfiguration. The Directors also extend distance by redriving the optical signal. We have

already seen attachment using Directors. Figure 6-4 completes the configuration choices by

showing a direct, point-to-point connection between a FICON channel and a native FICON

control unit.