Brocade Network Advisor SAN User Manual v11.1x (53-1002167-01, May 2011)

Document Title 645
xx-xxxxxxx-01
FICON emulation features
20
FICON pacing mechanism may interpret delays as an indication of a large data transfer that could
monopolize a shared resource, and react by throttling the I/O. IBM z/OS Global Mirror (z Gm)
emulation provides local responses to remote hosts, eliminating distance related delays. A FICON
XRC Emulation License is required to enable IBM z/OS Global Mirror (z Gm) Emulation.
Tape write pipelining
FICON tape write pipelining improves performance for a variety of applications when writing to tape
over extended distances. FICON tape write pipelining locally acknowledges write data records,
enabling the host to generate more records while previous records are in transit across the IP WAN.
If exception status is received from the device, the writing of data and emulation is terminated. The
FICON Tape Emulation License is required to enable FICON Tape Write Pipelining.
Tape read pipelining
FICON tape read pipelining improves performance for certain applications when reading from
FICON tape over extended distances. FICON tape read pipelining reads data from tape directly from
the tape device. Reading of tape continues until a threshold is reached. The buffered data is
forwarded to the host in response to requests from the host. When the host sends the status
accept frame indicating that the data was delivered, the read processing on the device side credits
the pipeline and requests more data from the tape. If exception status is received from the device,
the reading of data and emulation is terminated. The FICON Tape Emulation License is required to
enable FICON Tape Read Pipelining.
Teradata pipelining
Teradata emulation reduces latency on links to Teradata warehouse systems caused by WAN
propagation delays and bandwidth restrictions. It accomplishes this by processing selected FICON
commands for associated control, data, and status responses. FICON Teradata Emulation is
supported between FICON Channels and FICON Teradata controllers. This feature is available only
on 8 Gbps Extension Switch and Blade platforms operating with Fabric OS 6.4.1 and later.
Write pipelining
For write commands, control and status frames are generated for the host side of the WAN to
pipeline write commands over the same or multiple exchanges.
Read pipelining
For read operations received by the device side of the WAN, a number of anticipatory read
commands are generated and transferred to the device. The data and status associated with these
commands are sent to the host side of the WAN and queued in anticipation of host-generated read
commands.