4 Gbit/sec SilkWorm Products Fully Supported in the Latest IBM zSeries Environments
4 Gbit/sec SilkWorm Products Fully Supported in the Latest IBM zSeries Environments
September 6th, 2006: Brocade announces that the Brocade SilkWorm 48000 Director and the SilkWorm 4100 Switch are now fully qualified for 4 Gbit/sec use with IBM System z family servers that support FICON Express4.
This latest qualification for the SilkWorm 48000 and SilkWorm 4100, marketed by IBM as the IBM TotalStorage SAN256B and the IBM TotalStorage SAN32B-2, respectively, further enhances the FICON support these products achieved for the IBM System z9 and all FICON Express platforms in October 2005.
The latest FICON connectivity is designed to enable SilkWorm 48000 customers to leverage a widely used Input/Output (I/O) interface for mainframe computer connections to storage devices. Organisations can use a single platform for both open systems and IBM System z server storage networks, with the ability to securely and flexibly intermix open systems and mainframe connectivity.
The new benefits to FICON Express4 customers include increased I/O capacity, faster data transfer rates between mainframe servers and storage devices, and simplified management. In addition, FICON overcomes the speed and distance limitations of ESCON connectivity, IBM's previous fibre optic channel standard, for storage systems in mainframe environments.
FICON Express4
- Supports z9 data serving.
- Improves performance compared to the FICON Express2 features on z990 and z890.
- Offers two unrepeated distance options (4 kilometres and 10 kilometres) when using single-mode fibre optic cabling.
- Supports a 4 Gbit/sec link data rate with auto-negotiation to 1 and 2 Gbit/sec.
The 4 Gbit/sec SilkWorm 48000 continues to support the full spectrum of System z capabilities such as Fibre Channel/FICON intermix, FICON Control Unit Port (CUP), N_Port ID Virtualisation (NPIV), and FICON cascading. Support of these capabilities enables optimised infrastructure for enterprise management and high-volume transaction processing applications such as ERP and data warehousing.
The SilkWorm 48000 was also recently named Most Valuable Product for Networking Equipment by InfoStor.
"The latest FICON certification for Brocade's high-performing SilkWorm family of SAN infrastructure solutions extends and simplifies storage capabilities for mainframe customers," said Tom Buiocchi, Brocade Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. "FICON Express4 on Brocade continues the joint leadership that Brocade and IBM established when the first 4 Gbit/sec SAN solutions were delivered in November 2004."