Gen 6 Fibre Channel Technology
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WHITE PAPER Better Performance, Better Insight for Your Mainframe Storage Network with Brocade Gen 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Brocade and the IBM z Systems IO product team share a unique Overview .............................................................. 1 history of technical development, which has produced the world’s most Technology Highlights .................................. 2 advanced mainframe computing and storage systems. Brocade’s Gen 6 Fibre Channel Technology technical heritage can be traced to the late 1980s, with the creation of Benefits for z Systems and Flash channel extension technologies to extend data centers beyond the “glass- Storage ................................................................ 7 house.” IBM revolutionized the classic “computer room” with the invention Summary ............................................................. 9 of the original ESCON Storage Area Network (SAN) of the 1990s, and, in the 2000s, it facilitated geographically dispersed FICON® storage systems. Today, the most compelling innovations in mainframe storage networking technology are the product of this nearly 30-year partnership between Brocade and IBM z Systems. As the flash era of the 2010s disrupts between the business teams allows both the traditional mainframe storage organizations to guide the introduction networking mindset, Brocade and of key technologies to the market place, IBM have released a series of features while the integration between the system that address the demands of the data test and qualification teams ensures the center. These technologies leverage the integrity of those products. Driving these fundamental capabilities of Gen 5 and efforts are the deep technical relationships Gen 6 Fibre Channel, and extend them to between the Brocade and IBM z Systems the applications driving the world’s most IO architecture and development teams, critical systems. This white paper provides whose close collaboration provides the a summary of these unique mainframe transformative technology to propel features, which reflect Brocade and IBM’s today’s ever-changing data center. dedication to technical excellence. Technology Themes Overview During the past five to seven years, the Partnership technology landscape of mainframe The Brocade and IBM partnership storage networking systems has evolved consists of many teams working to embrace new levels of scale. Not together to produce the best-in-class only are the computational demands products that mainframe users have increasing, but the physical reach of come to expect. The close relationship the systems is also growing. Business continuity and recovery requirements • IBM Health Checker for z/OS leverages Fabric I/O Priority and FICON multi- have stretched the limits of yesterday’s the internal Control Unit Port (CUP) of hop topologies. These technologies are technology, and the millennial cloud the FICON director to evaluate single- detailed below to provide insight into movement is forcing organizations to point-of-failure conditions as well as Brocade Gen 6/Gen 5 mainframe storage reexamine transactional processing. path integrity and performance. networking functionality. These pressures led IBM to produce • Problem determination and isolation are Availability Note one of the most innovative and highly enhanced through the Read Diagnostic Included in these descriptions are functioning processors in history—the Parameters (RDP) operations. released, planned, and under- z13. At the same time, Brocade provided development efforts. Please see your the networking dexterity necessary to • Forward Error Correct (FEC) improves local Brocade representative for details complement the z13’s impact. connection reliability and performance. regarding the Brocade Fabric OS® (FOS) Feature Summary Technology Highlights releases containing a specific feature or The technological leap induced by the z13 Brocade mainframe technology has functionality. is underscored by the inventiveness and produced several “first to market” Speed, Scale, and Performance integration of the Brocade® Gen 5 and innovations, including Gen 6 32 Gbps Inter-Chassis Links Gen 6 feature set: Fibre Channel, Gen 5 16 Gbps Fibre Inter-Chassis Links (ICLs) provide short- Channel with Forward Error Correction, • Inter-Chassis Links (ICLs) provide distance, chassis-to-chassis connectivity FICON Dynamic Routing, z/OS world-class scalability and flexible for Gen 5 and Gen 6 FICON directors for Health Checker integration, and Read chassis interconnectivity. use with FICON and/or FCP mainframe Diagnostic Parameters functionality. solutions (see Figure 1). This technology • Multi-hop topologies provide flexibility Leveraging the IBM z Systems IO team is used to build a powerful storage to geographically dispersed data centers partnership, Brocade has also produced networking core without sacrificing to support unique disaster recovery and significant mainframe storage networking device ports for Inter-Switch Link (ISL) business continuity configurations. market exclusives such as ICLs and connectivity. • 16 GFC FICON Express16S device Port Decommissioning. This shared connectivity and 32 GFC fabric dedication to the success and growth of ICLs minimize the latency between connectivity provide the fastest data the mainframe storage network can also chassis to provide the lowest-latency rates in the industry. be seen in newer endeavors, including switching via a backplane relative to using • FICON Dynamic Routing utilizes the full capacity of Inter-Switch Link (ISL) and ICL connections in cascaded network topologies, leveraging Brocade Hybrid Exchange-Based Routing (EBR) Local Hybrid technology. AFA • Fabric I/O Priority capabilities provide HDD Tape a foundation for applications, such as zOS Workload Manager, to prioritize individual IOs for optimal storage AFA network performance. ISLs 16 Gbps • Port Decommission is used for easier ISLs, 16 Gbps ICLs ICLs 16 Gbps infrastructure management through automated interaction between the fabric Remote and the mainframe IO subsystem. HDD Tape Figure 1: Inter-Chassis Links versus Inter-Switch Links. 2 comparable ISLs. Frame-based trunking is automatically enabled between four ICLs, which maximizes the load balancing and availability characteristics of the chassis. When used with FICON Dynamic Routing, the IO exchanges are evenly distributed across the ICL infrastructure for optimal performance. Furthermore, since the ICL connection is not considered to be a “hop of concern” in cascaded topologies, it can provide configuration flexibility for large deployments. Multi-hop Topologies The movement to disperse mainframe data centers geographically has forced the evolution of classical FICON SAN topologies. Simple cascaded systems have given way to multi-hop variations Figure 2: Example of multi-hop topology. that exploit Brocade ICL and FCIP channel extension technologies, while maintaining the integrity of the “hop of concern” provision. Advanced diagnostic capabilities, such as the IBM Health Checker for z/OS and the Fibre Channel Read Diagnostic Parameters function, have provided the apparatus necessary to maintain the deterministic reliability required for mainframe storage networks in extended topologies. Multi-hop topologies include two-, three-, and four-site disaster recovery and business continuity configurations (see Figure 2). Each topology is designed to address specific business requirements as well as regulatory provisions. In addition, the supported topologies are verified to operate with the same level of Figure 3: FICON Express16S channel card. predictability and deterministic reliability found in today’s classical cascaded solutions. Gen 5/Gen 6 Performance 32 Gbps Fibre Channel fabric connectivity Availability Note Brocade Gen 5 and Gen 6 FICON provide minimal storage network latency, Brocade and IBM are currently validating directors, shown in Figure 3, provide which significantly enhances data center the most effective topology solutions for optimal interface attachment rates for the application operations and performance. mainframe environments to ensure that FICON Express16S (FX16S) channel as performance and reliability requirements well as storage arrays. The 16 Gbps of z Systems solutions are maintained with Fibre Channel device connectivity and each supported configuration. See your Brocade representative for full details. 3 The faster link speeds provide reduced IO Fabric I/O Priority Availability Note latency for critical middleware IO, such as SAN Fabric I/O Priority integration Brocade and IBM z Systems are exploring database log writing, which significantly translates application importance into the full integration of Fabric I/O Priority improves DB2 transactional latency. Fabric Priority (Quality of Service), which to allow system management functions, The faster link speed also shrinks batch allows the application to maintain the such as zOS Workload Manager, to windows and reduces the elapsed time desired quality of service through the exploit end-to-end, integrated quality of for IO-bound batch jobs. Since faster link fabric. This allows the priority level to be service characteristics. See your Brocade speeds are more sensitive to the quality of communicated between the host and the representative for full details. the cabling infrastructure, new industry- end devices for end-to-end management leading standards are included to provide of application goals (see Figure 5). enhanced error correction on optical connections, ensuring a smooth