Where's Shai Hess when we need him ?
-----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of lynn Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:08 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Using a PC as DASD Bruce McKnight <[email protected]> writes: > This is kind of an odd question, so please bear with me. > > Last year we consolidated all of our LPARs onto a single z9. We have > a z800 that is disconnected from everything and completely powered > down. Once it rolls off the books, we'll probably roll it out to the > dumpster (Of course we know we have to be environmentally conscious > and recycle it appropriately. I was speaking figuratively.) > > It seems a shame to waste the hardware. I'd like to use it for a > Linux proof-of-concept project. We could easily reconnect it to power > and our network but DASD is a problem. We converted our array to > FICON but the z800 only has ESCON. > > My question is this: Does anyone know of a way to use a fast PC with a > big hard drive as mainframe DASD. I might be able to swing funds for > an ESCON card for the PC and whatever software may be required ... > within reason. The PC can run Linux or Windows. > > I'm just gathering feasibility info at this point. If I can't get a > PC to act as a DASD server, the whole idea is moot. > > By the way, for anyone from IBM or any software company, we would > definitely adhere to any software licensing and fee obligations. NCAR was the orignal NAS/SAN (networked storage) ... they basically used HYPERChannel as the infrastructure (for both command flow as well as data flow). They had some number of "supercomputers" and a 4381 running MVS. MVS was treated as disk controller ... the supercomputers (cray & others) would send requests to MVS via hyperchannel. MVS would load channel programs into HYPERChannel A515 device adapter (a515 basically emulated mainframe channel to which disk controllers like 3880s were attached) ... and return the channel program "handle" to the supercomputer. The supercomputer then would invoke the (mainframe) channel program in the A515 to transfer the data (to/from disk). there was then some work in the Hippi switch standards bodies to allow similar nas/san functionality in the Hippi switch (3rd party transfers) with IPI disks (i.e. "server" sets up hippi switch and ipi disk transfers ... which then transfers data directly to/from disks). Similar capability was worked on in the FCS switch standards activity ... for a little drift, basically FICON is effectively a somewhat proprietary extension of FCS (fiber channel standard) ... there were lots of heated discussions with mainframe channel engineers in the FCS standards committee & on FCS standards mailing list. in some ways it can be viewed that the original NCAR capability (over the years) has evolved into nas/san. wiki page ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_area_network try search engines for nas, san freeware ... -- 40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar70 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.10.25/1957 - Release Date: 02/19/09 10:48:00 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
