HP StorageWorks Fabric OS 6.1.1 administrator guide (5697-0235, December 2009)

424 FICON fabrics
Platforms supporting FICON
FICON protocol is supported on the HP StorageWorks 4/256 SAN Director and DC SAN Backbone
Director, short name, DC Director. Contact your HP storage representative for FICON support on switches
not listed here.
The following port blades can exist in a FICON environment; however, FICON device connection to ports
on these blades is not supported:
• FC4-16IP
• FC4-48
• FC8-48
NOTE: The FC4-48 and FC8-48 port blades are not supported for connecting to System z environments
through FICON channels or through FCP zLinux on System z.
In an Admin Domain-enabled fabric, you should put all of the ports on the FC4-48, FC8-48, and FC4-16IP
blades in an Admin Domain other than the one used for FICON ports. The ports on these blades should
not belong to the zone in which FICON devices are present.
The port-based routing policy is required in either in a single-switch configuration, or a cascaded switch
configuration on switches in the fabric that have FICON devices attached (option 1 of the aptPolicy
command). Other switches in the fabric can use the default exchange-based routing policy (option 3 of the
aptPolicy command) only when Open Systems devices are attached to those switches.
Types of FICON configurations
There are two types of FICON configurations:
• A single-switch configuration (called switched point-to-point) requires that the host channel be
configured to use single-byte addressing. If the channel is set up for two-byte addressing, the cascaded
configuration setup applies even if there is only a single switch in the fabric. This type of configuration
is described in ”Configuring a single switch” on page 427.
• A cascaded configuration (known as a high integrity fabric) 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 predefined list of switches (domains) to exist in the fabric and
prevents other switches from joining the fabric. This type of configuration is described in ”Configuring a
high-integrity fabric” on page 427.
Control Unit Port (CUP)
IMPORTANT: HP highly recommends installing and enabling CUP.
Control Unit Port (CUP) protocol is used by IBM mainframe management programs to provide in-band
management for FICON switches. When it is enabled, you can set up directors in a FICON environment to
be managed through IBM mainframe management programs. CUP is an optional licensed feature.
The following restrictions apply to FICON directors having at least 256 ports when FICON Management
Server mode (fmsmode) is enabled and CUP protocol is used to manage the switch:
• The switch is advertised to the mainframe by CUP as a 256-port switch (due to CUP protocol limitation).
• Port Information Block, PDCM, and port names are available for ports 0 through 254 only.
• CUP is not supported on the FC4-48 or FC8-48 port blade. Even though the FC4-48 and FC8-48 port
blades can be inserted in the chassis, only FCP ports can be attached to them.
• The FR4-18i routing blade must not be inserted in slot 10 of the chassis. (Other blades are supported in
slot 10, but the FR4-18i blade is not.) FICON channels and control units can be attached only to the FC
ports on this blade. This blade is advertised to the mainframe as a 16-port blade. If you have an
FC4-18i blade in slot 10 in your director, the 16 virtual ports are disabled when you enable fmsmode.