Enterprise Systems Connection

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ESCON cable

Enterprise Systems Connection ( ESCON ) is a protocol used by mainframes to exchange data between the computer and its peripheral devices ( e.g. disk subsystems , tape drives ). The physical connection paths are called ESCON channels .

historical overview

The forerunners of ESCON are the so-called parallel channels (bus & tag, copper cable) in IBM parlance , which have a transfer rate of 4.5 MB / s per channel. Since mainframes have to transfer large amounts of data between computers and peripherals, this speed was no longer sufficient. In 1990, IBM introduced ESCON technology, which enables a transfer rate of 17 MB / s per channel on the basis of fiber optics . Many mainframes still use ESCON channels. In recent years these have been replaced by FICON channels in new mainframe systems.

Areas of application

From 1990 until the market launch of FICON, ESCON was the communication protocol between mainframe computers and their peripherals. Medium-sized mainframe computer systems used between 4 and 40 ESCON channels, large mainframe systems used over 1000. Distances of up to 43 kilometers per channel can be bridged. So-called ESCON directors were used to optimally connect the systems. Devices with ESCON interfaces were almost exclusively offered by IBM, with the exception of disk subsystems from other manufacturers ( EMC , HDS ). They offer options for connection to mainframes and network devices, with which ESCON connections can be tunneled into other network protocols ( e.g. IP ).

literature

  • Diogo R. Ferreira: Enterprise Systems Integration. A Process-Oriented Approach, Springer Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-40795-6 .
  • Casimer DeCusatis (Ed.): Handbook of Fiber Optic Data Communication. Elsevier Inc., 2008, ISBN 978-0-12-374216-2 .

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