Broadcom Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration, 7.4.x User guide

Supporting Fabric OS 7.4.0

Supporting Fabric OS 7.4.1

ADMINISTRATION GUIDE

Brocade Fabric OS FICON

Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06

14 October 2016

©

Brocade, the B-wing symbol, and MyBrocade are registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the United States and in other

countries. Other brands, product names, or service names mentioned of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. are listed at www.brocade.com/en/legal/

brocade-Legal-intellectual-property/brocade-legal-trademarks.html. Other marks may belong to third parties.

Notice: This document is for informational purposes only and does not set forth any warranty, expressed or implied, concerning any equipment,

equipment feature, or service oered or to be oered by Brocade. Brocade reserves the right to make changes to this document at any time, without

notice, and assumes no responsibility for its use. This informational document describes features that may not be currently available. Contact a Brocade

sales oce for information on feature and product availability. Export of technical data contained in this document may require an export license from the

United States government.

The authors and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. assume no liability or responsibility to any person or entity with respect to the accuracy of this

document or any loss, cost, liability, or damages arising from the information contained herein or the computer programs that accompany it.

The product described by this document may contain open source software covered by the GNU General Public License or other open source license

agreements. To nd out which open source software is included in Brocade products, view the licensing terms applicable to the open source software, and

obtain a copy of the programming source code, please visit http://www.brocade.com/support/oscd.

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

2 53-1003517-06

Contents

Preface...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................7

Document conventions............................................................................................................................................................................................................................7

Notes, cautions, and warnings.....................................................................................................................................................................................................7

Text formatting conventions......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Command syntax conventions....................................................................................................................................................................................................8

Text formatting conventions......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Command syntax conventions....................................................................................................................................................................................................8

Notes, cautions, and warnings.....................................................................................................................................................................................................9

Brocade resources.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................9

Contacting Brocade Technical Support......................................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Brocade customers.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................10

Brocade OEM customers.......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10

Document feedback.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 10

About This Document..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Supported hardware and software................................................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Additional FICON resources.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11

What's new in this document............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 11

Changes made for this release ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 11

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-02).......................................................................................................................................................12

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-03).......................................................................................................................................................12

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-04).......................................................................................................................................................12

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-05).......................................................................................................................................................12

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-06).......................................................................................................................................................12

Introducing FICON...........................................................................................................................................................................................................13

FICON overview......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................13

Fabric OS support for FICON..................................................................................................................................................................................................13

Latency guideline...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................14

FICON concepts......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................14

FICON congurations...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................16

Switched point-to-point..............................................................................................................................................................................................................16

Cascaded FICON.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Access control in FICON..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 25

Cascaded zoning........................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 26

Error reporting.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................28

Secure access control.................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 28

FICON commands.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................29

Link and FC addressing....................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 31

Domain ID.........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................32

Port area............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 32

ALPA...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................32

Administering FICON Fabrics........................................................................................................................................................................................33

User security considerations.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 33

Meeting high-integrity fabric requirements..................................................................................................................................................................................33

Enabling the insistent domain ID............................................................................................................................................................................................ 34

Creating and activating the SCC policy................................................................................................................................................................................ 34

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 3

Enabling the fabric-wide consistency policy...................................................................................................................................................................... 35

Enabling High-Integrity Fabric mode....................................................................................................................................................................................35

Using other security commands............................................................................................................................................................................................. 35

Preparing a switch for FICON............................................................................................................................................................................................................36

Cascaded FICON and two-byte addressing considerations.......................................................................................................................................36

Conguring switched point-to-point FICON...............................................................................................................................................................................36

Conguring cascaded FICON........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 42

FICON and FICON CUP in Virtual Fabrics..................................................................................................................................................................................43

Addressing modes................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 44

Mode 1 (zero-based addressing)............................................................................................................................................................................................44

FICON and blade support for addressing modes........................................................................................................................................................... 44

Port swap limitations.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 44

Disabling and enabling ports - persistent states........................................................................................................................................................................45

Clearing the FICON management database...............................................................................................................................................................................45

Automating CS_CTL mapping..........................................................................................................................................................................................................46

FICON best practices............................................................................................................................................................................................................................47

Latency guideline....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................48

Conguring FICON CUP................................................................................................................................................................................................ 49

Control Unit Port overview.................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 49

FICON CUP restrictions............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 51

CUP conguration recommendations..................................................................................................................................................................................51

FICON CUP zoning and PDCM considerations.............................................................................................................................................................. 52

Port and switch naming standards for FMS mode...................................................................................................................................................................52

FICON CUP Fabric OS commands......................................................................................................................................................................................52

Conguring FICON CUP.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................53

Disabling ports 0xFE and 0xFF..............................................................................................................................................................................................53

Conguring FICON CUP in Virtual Fabrics........................................................................................................................................................................54

Determining physical port assignment .........................................................................................................................................................................................54

FMS mode and FICON CUP............................................................................................................................................................................................................ 54

Fabric OS command limitations and considerations......................................................................................................................................................55

Displaying FMS mode.................................................................................................................................................................................................................55

Enabling FMS mode.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 55

Disabling FMS mode...................................................................................................................................................................................................................56

FMS mode and FICON 0xFE or 0xFF ports....................................................................................................................................................................56

Upgrade considerations..............................................................................................................................................................................................................56

Port swap limitations.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 57

Mode register bit settings.................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 57

FICON le access facility........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 58

Considerations for setting mode register bits....................................................................................................................................................................60

Setting the mode register bits.................................................................................................................................................................................................. 60

Setting the MIHPTO value..................................................................................................................................................................................................................60

Persistently enabling and disabling ports for CUP................................................................................................................................................................... 60

Administering FICON Extension Services.................................................................................................................................................................. 63

Platforms supporting FICON extension over IP........................................................................................................................................................................63

FICON emulation overview................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 63

IBM z/OS Global Mirror emulation........................................................................................................................................................................................64

Tape emulation............................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 65

Printer emulation............................................................................................................................................................................................................................67

Teradata emulation........................................................................................................................................................................................................................68

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

4 53-1003517-06

FCIP conguration requirements for FICON extension......................................................................................................................................................... 68

Conguration requirements for switches and directors...........................................................................................................................................................68

High-integrity fabric requirements for cascaded congurations................................................................................................................................69

FICON emulation requirement for a determinate path..................................................................................................................................................69

Conguring FICON emulation...........................................................................................................................................................................................................70

Conguration examples.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 70

Displaying FICON emulation conguration values......................................................................................................................................................... 71

Modifying FICON emulation..............................................................................................................................................................................................................71

Displaying FICON emulation performance statistics...............................................................................................................................................................71

FICON emulation monitoring...................................................................................................................................................................................................71

Options for displaying statistics...............................................................................................................................................................................................73

Maintaining and Troubleshooting FICON................................................................................................................................................................... 75

Firmware management in a FICON environment.....................................................................................................................................................................75

Upgrade and downgrade considerations.............................................................................................................................................................................75

Firmware download disruption.................................................................................................................................................................................................75

Non-disruptive rmware upload and download................................................................................................................................................................76

Conguration restoration in a FICON environment..................................................................................................................................................................76

Trac Isolation Zoning..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................77

Determining ports for the TI Zone..........................................................................................................................................................................................77

Enhanced TI Zoning..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 78

Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 83

Port fencing............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 83

Dening port fencing....................................................................................................................................................................................................................83

Settings for FICON environments..........................................................................................................................................................................................83

FICON information.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................84

Link incidents...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................84

Registered listeners.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................84

Node identication data.............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 85

FRU error reporting...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 85

Swapping port area IDs........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 86

Important notes.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 87

Blade swapping........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................87

Common FICON issues...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 87

Troubleshooting FICON.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................90

General information to gather for all cases......................................................................................................................................................................... 90

Switched point-to-point topology checklist........................................................................................................................................................................91

Cascaded topology checklist....................................................................................................................................................................................................91

Gathering additional information............................................................................................................................................................................................. 91

CUP diagnostics............................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 92

Troubleshooting FICON CUP............................................................................................................................................................................................................92

Troubleshooting NPIV...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................92

Platforms Supporting FICON........................................................................................................................................................................................93

Introduction................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................93

Supported platforms with end-of-support announcements................................................................................................................................................ 93

Currently supported platforms...........................................................................................................................................................................................................94

Supported Brocade blades.................................................................................................................................................................................................................94

Basic Switch Conguration............................................................................................................................................................................................ 97

Address Binding Examples..........................................................................................................................................................................................101

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 5

Sequential address binding..............................................................................................................................................................................................................101

Example scripts for binding ports (Mode 1)....................................................................................................................................................................102

Unbinding multiple ports.................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 105

Conguration Information Record............................................................................................................................................................................. 107

EBCDIC Code Page.......................................................................................................................................................................................................109

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

6 53-1003517-06

Preface

• Document conventions...................................................................................................................................................................................... 7

• Brocade resources............................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

• Contacting Brocade Technical Support....................................................................................................................................................10

• Document feedback.........................................................................................................................................................................................10

Document conventions

The document conventions describe text formatting conventions, command syntax conventions, and important notice formats used in

Brocade technical documentation.

Notes, cautions, and warnings

Notes, cautions, and warning statements may be used in this document. They are listed in the order of increasing severity of potential

hazards.

NOTE

A Note provides a tip, guidance, or advice, emphasizes important information, or provides a reference to related information.

ATTENTION

An Attention statement indicates a stronger note, for example, to alert you when trac might be interrupted or the device might

reboot.

CAUTION

A Caution statement alerts you to situations that can be potentially hazardous to you or cause damage to hardware,

rmware, software, or data.

DANGER

A Danger statement indicates conditions or situations that can be potentially lethal or extremely hazardous to you. Safety

labels are also attached directly to products to warn of these conditions or situations.

Text formatting conventions

Text formatting conventions such as boldface, italic, or Courier font may be used to highlight specic words or phrases.

Format Description

bold text Identies command names.

Identies keywords and operands.

Identies the names of GUI elements.

Identies text to enter in the GUI.

italic text Identies emphasis.

Identies variables.

Identies document titles.

Courier font

Identies CLI output.

Identies command syntax examples.

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 7

Command syntax conventions

Bold and italic text identify command syntax components. Delimiters and operators dene groupings of parameters and their logical

relationships.

Convention Description

bold text Identies command names, keywords, and command options.

italic text Identies a variable.

value In Fibre Channel products, a xed value provided as input to a command option is printed in plain text, for

example, --show WWN.

[ ] Syntax components displayed within square brackets are optional.

Default responses to system prompts are enclosed in square brackets.

{ x | y | z } A choice of required parameters is enclosed in curly brackets separated by vertical bars. You must select

one of the options.

In Fibre Channel products, square brackets may be used instead for this purpose.

x | y A vertical bar separates mutually exclusive elements.

< > Nonprinting characters, for example, passwords, are enclosed in angle brackets.

... Repeat the previous element, for example, member[member...].

\ Indicates a “soft” line break in command examples. If a backslash separates two lines of a command

input, enter the entire command at the prompt without the backslash.

Text formatting conventions

Text formatting conventions such as boldface, italic, or Courier font may be used in the ow of the text to highlight specic words or

phrases.

Format Description

bold text Identies command names

Identies keywords and operands

Identies the names of user-manipulated GUI elements

Identies text to enter at the GUI

italic text Identies emphasis

Identies variables

Identies document titles

Courier font

Identies CLI output

Identies command syntax examples

Command syntax conventions

Bold and italic text identify command syntax components. Delimiters and operators dene groupings of parameters and their logical

relationships.

Convention Description

bold text Identies command names, keywords, and command options.

italic text Identies a variable.

value In Fibre Channel products, a xed value provided as input to a command option is printed in plain text, for

example, --show WWN.

Document conventions

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

8 53-1003517-06

Convention Description

[ ] Syntax components displayed within square brackets are optional.

Default responses to system prompts are enclosed in square brackets.

{ x | y | z } A choice of required parameters is enclosed in curly brackets separated by vertical bars. You must select

one of the options.

In Fibre Channel products, square brackets may be used instead for this purpose.

x | y A vertical bar separates mutually exclusive elements.

< > Nonprinting characters, for example, passwords, are enclosed in angle brackets.

... Repeat the previous element, for example, member[member...].

\ Indicates a “soft” line break in command examples. If a backslash separates two lines of a command

input, enter the entire command at the prompt without the backslash.

Notes, cautions, and warnings

Notes, cautions, and warning statements may be used in this document. They are listed in the order of increasing severity of potential

hazards.

NOTE

A Note provides a tip, guidance, or advice, emphasizes important information, or provides a reference to related information.

ATTENTION

An Attention statement indicates a stronger note, for example, to alert you when trac might be interrupted or the device might

reboot.

CAUTION

A Caution statement alerts you to situations that can be potentially hazardous to you or cause damage to hardware,

rmware, software, or data.

DANGER

A Danger statement indicates conditions or situations that can be potentially lethal or extremely hazardous to you. Safety

labels are also attached directly to products to warn of these conditions or situations.

Brocade resources

Visit the Brocade website to locate related documentation for your product and additional Brocade resources.

White papers, data sheets, and the most recent versions of Brocade software and hardware manuals are available at www.brocade.com.

Product documentation for all supported releases is available to registered users at MyBrocade.

Click the Support tab and select Document Library to access documentation on MyBrocade or www.brocade.com You can locate

documentation by product or by operating system.

Release notes are bundled with software downloads on MyBrocade. Links to software downloads are available on the MyBrocade landing

page and in the Document Library.

Brocade resources

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 9

Contacting Brocade Technical Support

As a Brocade customer, you can contact Brocade Technical Support 24x7 online, by telephone, or by e-mail. Brocade OEM customers

should contact their OEM/solution provider.

Brocade customers

For product support information and the latest information on contacting the Technical Assistance Center, go to www.brocade.com and

select Support.

If you have purchased Brocade product support directly from Brocade, use one of the following methods to contact the Brocade

Technical Assistance Center 24x7.

Online Telephone E-mail

Preferred method of contact for non-urgent

issues:

• Case management through the

MyBrocade portal.

• Quick Access links to Knowledge

Base, Community, Document Library,

Software Downloads and Licensing

tools

Required for Sev 1-Critical and Sev 2-High

issues:

• Continental US: 1-800-752-8061

• Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia

Pacic: +800-AT FIBREE (+800 28

34 27 33)

• Toll-free numbers are available in

many countries.

• For areas unable to access a toll-free

number: +1-408-333-6061

[email protected]

Please include:

• Problem summary

• Serial number

• Installation details

• Environment description

Brocade OEM customers

If you have purchased Brocade product support from a Brocade OEM/solution provider, contact your OEM/solution provider for all of

your product support needs.

• OEM/solution providers are trained and certied by Brocade to support Brocade

®

products.

• Brocade provides backline support for issues that cannot be resolved by the OEM/solution provider.

• Brocade Supplemental Support augments your existing OEM support contract, providing direct access to Brocade expertise.

For more information, contact Brocade or your OEM.

• For questions regarding service levels and response times, contact your OEM/solution provider.

Document feedback

Quality is our rst concern at Brocade, and we have made every eort to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this document.

However, if you nd an error or an omission, or you think that a topic needs further development, we want to hear from you. You can

provide feedback in two ways:

• Through the online feedback form in the HTML documents posted on www.brocade.com

• By sending your feedback to documentation@brocade.com

Provide the publication title, part number, and as much detail as possible, including the topic heading and page number if applicable, as

well as your suggestions for improvement.

Contacting Brocade Technical Support

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

10 53-1003517-06

About This Document

• Supported hardware and software..............................................................................................................................................................11

• Additional FICON resources.........................................................................................................................................................................11

• What's new in this document........................................................................................................................................................................11

Supported hardware and software

Although many dierent software and hardware congurations are tested and supported by Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. for

Fabric OS v7.4.0 documenting all possible congurations and scenarios is beyond the scope of this document.

For a complete list of platforms supported by FICON and Fabric OS v7.4.0, refer to Platforms supporting FICON on page 93

Platforms supporting FICON.

In cases where procedures or parts of procedures do not apply to all Brocade hardware platforms, this guide identies which platforms

are supported.

Additional FICON resources

In addition to Brocade product resources listed under "Brocade Resources" in this Preface, a dedicated page for mainframe resources is

located at Mainframe and FICON Solutions.

What's new in this document

This document includes new and

modied information for the Fabric OS 7.4.0 release.

Changes made for this release

The following information was added or changed in this document, in addition to other changes made for accuracy and clarity:

• Throughout the document, updated reference to third-party products.

• Updated the information in FICON Overview to current IBM versions.

• Updated the information in Conguring switched point-to-point FICON on page 36 to allow both PBR and DBR when

FICON Emulation features are enabled.

• Updated the information and added a note about HIF requirements in Meeting high-integrity fabric requirements on page 33.

• Updated the information in Conguration restoration in a FICON environment on page 76 for changes to conguration

upload and conguration download.

• In the chapter Administering FICON Fabrics on page 33, removed the section FCR and FICON cascading that exists in prior

releases of the document

• Added information in IBM z/OS Global Mirror emulation on page 64 recommending use of DBR rather than PBR in

cascaded FICON congurations.

• Updated the supported platform list in Enhanced TI Zoning on page 78.

• Updated the information in Port fencing on page 83 to recommend alternatives to port fencing.

• Updated the list of supported platforms and releases in Currently supported platforms on page 94.

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 11

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-02)

Minor changes have been made to the document to enhance presentation of the graphics and illustrations.

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-03)

Minor corrections have been made to the document to correct typographical errors.

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-04)

The following information was changed in this document:

• Information about Mode 0 and Mode 2 addressing modes was removed from Addressing modes on page 44. Mode 1 (zero-

based) addressing is the recommended mode for FICON congurations.

• Examples for Mode 2 addressing were removed from Address Binding Examples on page 101.

• Information about supported platforms in Fabric OS 7.4.0 was updated in Currently supported platforms on page 94.

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-05)

The following information was changed in this document:

• Information about supported platforms in Fabric OS 7.4.0 and Fabric OS 7.4.1 was updated in Currently supported platforms

on page 94.

Changes made for this release (53-1003517-06)

The following information was added or changed in this document:

• A note was added to the following areas in the document to advise the importance of enabling FMS mode before conguring

port names.

– Port and switch naming standards for FMS mode on page 52

– FMS mode and FICON CUP on page 54

– Enabling FMS mode on page 55

What's new in this document

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

12 53-1003517-06

Introducing FICON

• FICON overview.................................................................................................................................................................................................13

• FICON concepts................................................................................................................................................................................................14

• FICON congurations......................................................................................................................................................................................16

• Access control in FICON................................................................................................................................................................................25

• FICON commands........................................................................................................................................................................................... 29

• Link and FC addressing..................................................................................................................................................................................31

FICON overview

IBM Fibre Connection (FICON

®

) is an industry-standard, high-speed input/output (I/O) interface for mainframe connections to storage

devices. This guide discusses support oered by Fabric OS in intermix mode operations, in which FICON and Fibre Channel technology

work together.

For specic information about intermix mode and other aspects of FICON, refer to the IBM Redbook, FICON

®

Implementation Guide

(SG24-6497-03), and IBM z System Connectivity Handbook (G24-5444-15).

NOTE

In this guide, the term switch is used to refer to a Brocade switch, Backbone, backbone platform, or director unless otherwise

noted.

Fabric OS support for FICON

The following Fabric OS standard features support FICON fabrics:

• Blade swapping

Allows you to swap a blade of the same type so that you can replace a eld-replaceable unit (FRU) with minimal trac

disruption. This feature is available for both FICON and open system environments. Blade swapping resolves situations in which

the hardware has failed and the channel congurations cannot be changed quickly. In addition, a blade swap minimizes and

eliminates the need to make changes to the I/O sysgen in the hardware conguration denition (HCD). Blade swapping has

minimal or no impact on other switch features.

• Routing policies

IBM z Systems FICON did not support exchange-based routing as of the publication date of this document, but does support

port-based and device- based routing. For details on these policies, refer to the "Routing Trac" chapter in the Fabric OS

Administrator's Guide.

• FICON MIB module

Addresses link incident data for FICON hosts and devices connected to a switch. The FICON MIB module supplements other

Management Information Bases (MIBs) used to manage switches and should be used in conjunction with those other MIBs.

• Insistent Domain ID (IDID)

Disables the dynamic domain ID feature and only allows the switch to use a pre-set domain ID. All switches in a fabric must

have a unique domain ID. An insistent domain ID is required with 2-byte addressing. IDID is the recommended best practice for

single byte addressing.

• Link incident detection, registration, and reporting

Provides administrative and diagnostic information.

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 13

• Swap port area IDs (PIDs) of physical ports

Redirects resources from a failed port to a healthy port without changing the mainframe hardware conguration denition (HCD)

settings. This feature, also called "port swapping," is available for both FICON and open system environments. Swapping PIDs

on ports resolves situations in which the hardware has failed and the channel congurations cannot be changed quickly. Port

swapping has minimal or no impact on other switch features.

• Switch connection control (SCC) policy

Includes fabric security methods that prevent unauthorized switches from joining a fabric. SCC policy congured in strict mode

is required for cascaded FICON congurations and whenever 2-byte addressing is used.

• Trac Isolation (TI) Zones and Enhanced TI Zones

TI Zones are used to direct trac across links through a specied path. Enhanced TI Zones allow you to have ports in more than

one TI Zone and to program domain controller routes to destination domains for F-class trac, ensuring fabric stability.

NOTE

For more detail on these features and conguration procedures, refer to the Fabric OS Administrator's

Guide.

Brocade management tools provide further support:

• Brocade Network Advisor

Brocade Network Advisor is an optional software program that can be used to manage a fabric that supports FICON and Fibre

Channel Protocol (FCP) devices and trac. This is the recommended GUI management tool for FICON environments on B-

series enterprise-class switches. For more information on Brocade Network Advisor, refer to the manual appropriate for your

version requirements:

– Brocade Network Advisor SAN + IP User Manual

– Brocade Network Advisor SAN User Manual

• Web Tools

Web Tools is an embedded GUI-management tool that can be used to manage a Brocade switch or director that supports

FICON and Fibre Channel Protocol (FCP) devices and trac. For more information on Web Tools, refer to the Web Tools

Administrator's Guide.

Latency guideline

The maximum supported distance for a FICON channel is 300 Km (1.5 msec of delay). Synchronous remote data replication for DASD

is generally limited to 100 Km (0.5 msec of delay). Asynchronous remote data replication for DASD, and remote tape reads/writes

require that the Brocade Advanced Accelerator for FICON feature be used with FCIP. The Advanced Accelerator for FICON feature

emulates control unit response to the channel to improve the performance over distances greater than locally attached distances.

FICON concepts

The following gure shows how the trac in a switched point-to-point conguration ows in a FICON environment. The logical path of

the trac is dened as frames moving from the channel to the switch to the control unit. FICON trac moves from a logical partition

(LPAR) and through the channel, through a Fibre Channel link to the switch through the control unit, and ends at the device. This is also

called a channel path, which is a single interface between a central processor and one or more control units along which signals and data

can be sent to perform I/O requests. The channel path uses the logical path to traverse the Fibre Channel fabric. The channel path is

dened using an ID, called the channel path ID (CHPID). This information is stored in the Input/Output Denition File (IODF) and may be

dynamically congured. The IODF is typically built using the hardware conguration denition (HCD).

FICON concepts

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

14 53-1003517-06

FIGURE 1 FICON trac

The trac on the channel path communicates using channel command words (CCW) for Command Mode FICON, and transport control

words (TCW) for z High Performance FICON (zHPF) channel programs. In a FICON environment, buer credits are used at the Fibre

Channel Protocol (FCP) level for

ow control between optically adjacent ports, while information unit (IU) pacing is the ow control

mechanism used by the channel. There are times when there are no more buer credits to pass back to the other end of the link and a

frame pacing delay occurs. Frame pacing delay is the number of intervals of 2.5 microseconds that a frame had to wait to be transmitted

due to a lack of available buer credits. Frame pacing delay information is reported via the z/OS Resource Measurement Facility (RMF),

specically in the FICON Director Activity Report (RMF 74-7).

FICON introduces the following concepts:

• FICON Control Unit Port (CUP)

The internal port in a switch that assumes an Fibre Channel (FC) address such that it is the FC domain ID (DID) used to direct

FICON trac to the FICON Management Server (FMS).

• FICON Manager

Host communication includes control functions such as blocking and unblocking ports, as well as monitoring and error-

reporting functions.

• Hardware conguration denition (HCD)

HCD is an IBM interactive interface application that allows you to dene the hardware conguration for both the processor

channel subsystem and the operating system running on the processor.

• Information unit

A unit of FICON data consisting of from one to four Fibre Channel frames.

• Link Incident Record Registration (LIRR)

The LIRR Extended Link Service (ELS) requests that the recipient add the requesting port to its list of ports that are to receive a

Registered Link Incident Report (RLIR).

• Node

A node is an endpoint that contains information. It can be a computer (host), a device controller, or a peripheral device, such as a

DASD array or tape drive. A node has a unique 64-bit identier known as the Node_Name. The Node_Name is typically used

for management purposes.

FICON concepts

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 15

• Prohibit Dynamic Connectivity Mask (PDCM) and connectivity attributes

PDCM controls whether communication between a pair of ports in the switch is prohibited. Connectivity attributes control

whether all the communication is blocked for a port.

• Read Record Set (RRS)

RRS is an IBM Channel-initiated CCW command. The Brocade Advanced Accelerator for FICON License allows the emulation

of command chains that include this CCW command. The command is used in IBM z/OS Global Mirror congurations to read

updates from a volume in an active mirroring session.

• Registered Link Incident Report (RLIR)

RLIR ELS provides a way for a node port to send an incident record to another node port.

• Request Node Identication Data (RNID)

RNID ELS acquires the associated node’s identication data, which provides conguration discovery and management purpose

information.

• Resource Measurement Facility (RMF)

Performance monitoring component of z/OS that gathers transaction data from the environment and generates performance

reports. All Level II reports, which include port statistics, require the FICON Control Unit Port (CUP) and FICON Management

Server (FMS), the FICON director included in the IOSysGen as a 2032 Control Unit, and the appropriate parmlib settings

congured to enable the RMF 74-7 record generation and statistics collected.

• Systems Operations (SysOps)

SysOps provides the ability to monitor and control all subsystems in a sysplex from any system in the sysplex. This includes

controlled startup, controlled shutdown, and automated recovery of software resources.

• Sysplex

In IBM mainframe computers, a Systems Complex, commonly called a sysplex, allows multiple processors to be joined into a

single unit, sharing the same sysplex name and Couple Data Sets.

• IPL le

The initial program load (IPL) File, located in nonvolatile storage, contains the current, active conguration settings for the

FICON director. If functions to initialize data on the Director during a POR event. When the "Active=Saved" FICON CUP mode

register bit setting is on, any active conguration in switch memory is automatically saved to the IPL le.

FICON congurations

There are two types of FICON congurations that are supported using Brocade Fabric OS: switched point-to-point and cascaded

topologies.

Switched point-to-point

A single-switch conguration is called switched point-to-point allows the channel to use single-byte addressing.

FICON congurations

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

16 53-1003517-06

FIGURE 2 Switched point-to-point FICON

Cascaded FICON

Cascaded FICON refers to an implementation of FICON that uses one or more FICON channel paths in which the domain ID of the

entry switch is dierent than the domain ID of the switch where the control unit is attached. Therefore, cascading requires a two-byte link

address. Anytime a two-byte link address is dened on a channel, all link addresses associated with that channel must be two-byte link

addresses.

Switches may be interconnected using the following links:

• Traditional Inter-Switch Links (ISLs)

• Inter-Chassis Links (ICLs)

• Fibre Channel over Internet Protocol (FCIP)

FICON congurations

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 17

The processor interface is connected to one switch (known as the entry switch), while the storage interface is connected to the other. This

conguration is supported for both DASD and tape, with multiple processors, DASD subsystems, and tape subsystems sharing the ISLs

or ICLs between the switches and directors. Multiple ISLs between the switches and directors are also supported. Cascading between

switches and directors is also supported. An example of this would be a Brocade DCX 8510-8 director connected to a Brocade 6510.

A cascaded conguration (refer to the following gure) requires two-byte addressing. Two byte-addressing requires a list of authorized

switches. This authorization feature, called fabric binding, is available through the Secure Access Control List feature. The fabric binding

policy allows a predened list of switches (domains) to exist in the fabric and prevents other switches from joining the fabric. This type of

conguration is described in User security considerations on page 33. The Switch Connection control Policy must also be congured

in strict mode.

FIGURE 3 Cascaded FICON

There are hardware and software requirements specic to two-byte addressing:

• Both the FICON switches must be Brocade switches.

• The mainframes must be zArchitecture machines: z196, z114, z800, 890, 900, 990, z9 BC, z9 EC, z10 BC, z10 EC,

zEC12, zBC12, and z13. Cascaded FICON requires 64-bit architecture to support the two-byte addressing scheme.

Cascaded FICON is not supported on 9672 G5/G6 or earlier mainframes.

• z/OS version 1.4 or later, or z/OS version 1.3 with required Program Temporary Fixes (PTFs) and Microcode Loads (MCLs) to

support two-byte link addressing (DRV3g and MCL (J11206) or later) is required.

• Switch conguration requirements:

– Make sure that E_D_TOV is the same on all switches in the fabric (typically, this is not changed from the default)

FICON congurations

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

18 53-1003517-06

– Make sure that R_A_TOV is the same on all switches in the fabric (typically, this is not changed from the default)

– Congure insistent Domain ID (IDID)

– Congure fabric binding (strict SCC policy)

Qualied FICON cascaded congurations

Not all bre channel fabrics are qualied for FICON. Cascaded FICON congurations are limited to well-controlled paths. Only the

channel paths illustrated in this section are supported for FICON. The resulting fabric scenario after ISL failures must not result in an

unsupported conguration. When physical cabling is not practical to enforce these congurations, zoning or Trac Isolation zoning (TI

zoning) with failover disabled may be used to ensure unsupported fabrics cannot be formed. Note that these restrictions apply to logical

switches and not the chassis.

The following gures show two cascaded congurations. These congurations require Channel A to be congured for two-byte

addressing and require IDID and fabric binding. It is recommended that there be only two domains in a path from a FICON Channel

interface to a FICON Control Unit interface. There are exceptions to the two-domain rule in extended fabric congurations. Refer to

Extended fabric congurations on page 20 for examples.

FIGURE 4 Cascaded conguration, two switches

The following gure illustrates multiple switches cascaded o of switch 21. As long as there is only one hop from channel to control unit,

the conguration is supported.

FIGURE 5 Cascaded

conguration, core-edge architecture

FICON congurations

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

53-1003517-06 19

Extended fabric congurations

Switches in cascaded congurations may be connected through interchassis links (ICLs), interswitch links (ISLs), and FCIP. Connection

using FCIP is through Fibre Channel extension devices, such as 7800 switches, 7840 switches, and FX8-24 blades. Following are

example congurations.

For more information on long distance and extended fabrics, refer to the Fabric OS Administrator's Guide. For more information on

extension products, including FCIP and IP Extension, refer to the Fabric OS Extension Administrator's Guide.

The following gure illustrates a multi-hop ICL triangle conguration that uses ICLs. Note that three switches are connected through ICLs

only.

FIGURE 6 Multi-hop ICL triangle

The following gure illustrates a multi-hop conguration that uses ICLs and ISLs. This conguration is supported with or without switches

4 or 1. All switches must be all generation (Gen) 4 or all Gen 5. You cannot mix Gen 4 and Gen 4 on ICL connections.

FICON congurations

Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration Guide, 7.4.x

20 53-1003517-06

Page is loading ...

Broadcom Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration, 7.4.x User guide

Broadcom Brocade Fabric OS FICON Administration, 7.4.x User guide

Related papers

Other documents