PACKAGE DESCRIPTION
• Virtual SANs (VSANs) for FICON and FCP intermixing-VSANs provide hardware-based partitioning of a single physical SAN into multiple VSANs that can be used to provide true hardware-based separation of FICON and FCP traffic. Thus, VSANs allow intermixing of FICON and FCP traffic on the same switch without compromising scalability, availability, manageability, and network security.
• FICON Control Unit Port (CUP)-Implementation of a special control device called the FICON Control Device, also known as CUP, in the Cisco MDS 9000 Family allows in-band management of the switch from FICON hosts.
• Fabric Binding-The Fabric Binding feature helps ensure that Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) are only enabled between switches that have been authorized in the fabric binding configuration. This feature helps prevent unauthorized switches from joining the fabric or disrupting current fabric operations.
• Switch Cascading-The Switch Cascading feature supports a topology for FICON devices wherein ISLs can be used between a host and an I/O device. Thus, Switch Cascading facilitates creation of mainframe storage networks consisting of multiple switches.
• IBM TotalStorage Virtual Tape Server-The Cisco MDS 9000 Family is fully qualified with IBM TotalStorage Virtual Tape Server (VTS) and IBM TotalStorage Peer-to-Peer Virtual Tape Server. These FICON capabilities enhance data backup and recovery, and data availability. Deploying VTS on VSAN-enabled networks protects the local mainframe environment from instability or excessive control traffic introduced by the metropolitan-area network (MAN), WAN, and remote network.
• IBM TotalStorage Extended Remote Copy (XRC)-The Cisco MDS 9000 Family is fully qualified with the IBM TotalStorage XRC application. XRC simplifies business-continuance implementation strategies by allowing asynchronous replication of data over extended distances. Deploying XRC on VSAN-enabled networks protects the local mainframe environment from instability or excessive control traffic introduced by the MAN, WAN, and remote network.
• FICON Tape Acceleration-Local acknowledgement to tape operations are used to extend distance and reduce application latency due to tape operations.
• Additional features-Additional FICON-related features included in the Mainframe package are:
– FICON Native Mode and Native Mode Channel-to-Channel operation
– Persistent FICON FCID assignment
– Port swapping for host-channel cable connections
SOFTWARE RELEASE
LICENSE INFORMATION
ORDERING INFORMATION
• M9500FIC1K9-Mainframe package for one Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Director M9500FIC1K9=-Spare
• M9200FIC1K9-Mainframe package for one Cisco MDS 9200 Series Multilayer Fabric Switch M9200FIC1K=-Spare
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES
