Here's the link to Optica's FICON to ESCON solution: http://www.opticatech.com/products/prizm/
The general advice is to shift as much as you can to either FICON or network connectivity, then supplement that strategy as/if needed with Optica's Prizm. (Optica also supports chaining to Bus & Tag devices.) IBM Services offers assistance (Offering ID #6948-97D) for the migration if you need it. IBM issued a Statement of Direction on April 28, 2009, indicating that direct ESCON attachment would eventually disappear from newer machine models. IBM announced and started shipping its first ESCON-equipped mainframes on September 5, 1990, with the introduction of the ES/9000 Models 190, 210, 260, 320, 440, and 480 -- that's where the "ES" in ESCON came from. ESCON has enjoyed full IBM support for direct attachment for more than 20 years -- a very, very long time for any I/O technology. Perhaps contrary to our perceptions, ESCON did not enjoy I/O superiority for very long. Less than 8 years later IBM introduced FICON with its System/390 Generation 5 models announced on May 7, 1998. But every machine up to and including the z196/z114 still supports direct ESCON attachment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples Resident Enterprise Architect (Based in Singapore) E-Mail: [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
