On Tuesday, 07/18/2006 at 07:54 ZW3, Bodra - Pessoal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 1 ? Today we have an IBM z890 with Escon and Ficon channels installed. > 2 ? We have some z/Linux guest machines under z/VM. > 3 ? We want to use some available space in a SAN compost of SUN SE-6320, 2 > switch FC Brocade 3850, one SUN LTO-2 to hold a Data Base application to be > accessed by z/Linux. > > My questions are: > A ? It?s possible to connect Ficon channels directly to SAN switch?
No. FICON connections are not the same as Fibre Channel. Well, they are, sort of. That is, FICON is another protocol layer on top of Fibre Channel. FICON doesn't carry SCSI commands and only connects to a FICON switch or, for CTC, I think you can do point-to-point. > B ? If A isn?t true, there are an alternative. (A black box to convert signals) > > Sun support team say that this machine (SE-6320) is for mid-range environment > with SCSI characteristics, and isn?t possible to connect Ficon channel to it, > but and about FCP feature of z890? It?s supported by z/VM, right? The Sun support team is correct: The FCP feature is what you want. It connects to a Fibre Channel switch and through that to your SAN. (There is also the capability of point-to-point connection directly to the device.) Alan Altmark z/VM Development IBM Endicott
