ESCON

Enterprise Systems Connection ( ESCON ) is a protocol that is used by mainframes to perform the exchange of data between the computer and its peripheral devices (such as disk subsystems, tape drives ). The physical connection paths are referred to as ESCON channels.

Historical Overview

The precursor of the IBM ESCON parlance, so-called parallel channels ( bus & Day, copper wire ) having a transfer rate of 4.5 MB / s per channel. Because mainframes need to transfer large amounts of data between computers and peripherals, this speed was no longer sufficient. In 1990, the ESCON technology was introduced by IBM allowing a transfer rate of 17 MB / s per channel on the basis of optical waveguides. Many mainframes are still using ESCON channels. In recent years, these have been replaced with new mainframe systems by FICON channels.

Areas of application

ESCON was from 1990 until the launch of the communication protocol between FICON mainframe computers and their peripherals. Average mainframe computer systems used between 4 and 40 ESCON Anaele, large mainframe systems over 1000th It distances can be covered up to 43 kilometers per channel. To connect to the systems optimal, so-called ESCON Directors were used. Units with ESCON interfaces have been offered almost exclusively by IBM, exceptions are disk subsystems from other manufacturers ( EMC, HDS). They offer options for connecting to mainframes and network devices with which ESCON connections (for example, IP) can be tunneled in other network protocols.

• Network protocol
• Optical Communications