ESCON (Enterprise Systems Connection) is a data connection created by
IBM, and is commonly used to connect their
mainframe computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
s to peripheral devices such as
disk storage
Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is ...
,
tape drive
A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and a long archival stability.
...
s and
IBM 3270
The IBM 3270 is a family of block oriented display and printer computer terminals introduced by IBM in 1971
and normally used to communicate with IBM mainframes. The 3270 was the successor to the IBM 2260 display terminal. Due to the text ...
display controllers. ESCON is an
optical fiber
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...
,
half-duplex
A duplex communication system is a point-to-point system composed of two or more connected parties or devices that can communicate with one another in both directions. Duplex systems are employed in many communications networks, either to allow ...
,
serial interface. It originally operated at a rate of 10MB/s, which was later increased to 17MB/s. The current maximum distance is 43 kilometers.
IBM introduced ESCON in September 1990 as part of its System/390 announcement.
[
] It replaced the older, slower (4.5MB/s), copper-based, parallel,
IBM System/360
The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...
Bus and Tag
Bus and Tag is an "IBM standard for a computer peripheral interface", and was commonly used to connect their mainframe computers to peripheral devices such as line printers, disk storage, magnetic tape drives and IBM 3270 display controllers. ...
channels technology of 1960-1990 era mainframes. Optical fiber is smaller in diameter and weight, and hence could save installation costs. Space and labor could also be reduced when fewer physical links were required - due to ESCON's switching features. ESCON is being supplanted by the substantially faster
FICON
FICON (Fibre Connection) is the IBM proprietary name for the ANSI ''FC-SB-3 Single-Byte Command Code Sets-3 Mapping Protocol'' for Fibre Channel (FC) protocol. It is a FC layer 4 protocol used to map both IBM's antecedent (either ESCON or para ...
, which runs over
Fibre Channel
Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data cen ...
.
ESCON allows the establishment and reconfiguration of channel connections dynamically, without having to take equipment off-line and manually move the cables. ESCON supports channel connections using serial transmission over a pair of fibers. The ESCON Director supports dynamic switching (which could be achieved prior to ESCON, but not with IBM-only products). It also allows the distance between units to be extended up to 60 km over a dedicated fiber. "Permanent virtual circuits" are supported through the switch.
ESCON switching has advantages over a collection of point-to-point links. A peripheral previously capable of accessing a single mainframe can now be connected simultaneously to up to eight mainframes, providing peripheral sharing.
The ESCON interface specifications were adopted in 1996 by
ANSI
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organi ...
X3T1 committee as the SBCON standard, which is now managed by
X3T11.
See also
*
Direct access storage device
A direct-access storage device (DASD) (pronounced ) is a secondary storage device in which "each physical record has a discrete location and a unique address". The term was coined by IBM to describe devices that allowed random access to data, t ...
(DASD)
* Most important DASD (
disk arrays
A disk array is a disk storage system which contains multiple disk drives. It is differentiated from a disk enclosure, in that an array has cache memory and advanced functionality, like RAID, deduplication, encryption and virtualization.
Compon ...
) with ESCON interfaces:
**
EMC Symmetrix
The Symmetrix system was an EMC's enterprise storage array. It combined dozens of hard drives into a single virtual device that was then shared on a local area network. It was the flagship product of EMC in the 1990s and 2000s.
History
Sym ...
, DMX and VMAX families.
**
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company (HPE) is an American multinational information technology company based in Spring, Texas, United States.
HPE was founded on November 1, 2015, in Palo Alto, California, as part of the splitting of the H ...
XP Storage family.
**
Hitachi Data Systems
Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) was a provider of modular mid-range and high-end computer data storage systems, software and services. Its operations are now a part of Hitachi Vantara.
It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. and part of th ...
Lightning
**
IBM Enterprise Storage Server
The IBM Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) or the ''Shark'' is an enterprise storage array from IBM.
History
Originally, in 1998 IBM released the IBM 2105 Versatile Storage Server (VSS). It did not meet commercial success and the successor came in ...
(Shark)
** IBM
Storage DS8000
**
Sun StorageTek SVA
References
Computer storage devices
Fiber-optic connectors
Mainframe computers
IBM System/360 mainframe line
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