
Chapter 6. Accessing large amounts of data 111
6.2 Channel subsystem
Figure 6-2 Channel subsystem
It is a common hardware technique to increase performance by using specialized
microprocessors, such as for graphics in a personal computer. An IBM System z
server has the potential for thousands of I/O operations a second. To manage
them, one or more dedicated microprocessors, known as Channel Subsystems
(CSSs), are used. At the time of writing the largest IBM System z could have
1024 channels spread across four CSSs.
The CSS provides the server communications to external devices using channel
connections. The channels allow transfer of data betw ...