Partitioning and Escon Enhancements For Top-End ES/9000s

Enhancements to ES/9000 Processor Models 520, 640, 660, 740, 820, 860, and 900 – the so-called 520-based processors – consist of the Escon Multiple Image Facility which enables Escon channel sharing between PR/SM partitions in an Escon environment; PR/SM support for up to 10 logical partitions per side; Escon Channel-to-Channel support for basic mode accommodates migration of parallel CTC applications to an Escon environment; the Asynchronous Pageout Facility moves pages more efficiently from Central to Expanded storage; and the Logical String Assist provides three new instructions designed to benefit string operation-intensive C applications. The enhancements are standard offerings on all ES/9000 Model 520-based processors but availability varies. On new build ES/9000 Models 520, 640, 660, 740, 820, 860, and 900 the Escon Multiple Image Facility ships in December as does PR/SM 10 Logical Partition Support and Logical String Assist. Escon CTC Channel Support for Basic Mode and Asynchronous Pageout Facility are available from March 1993. The enhancements will be available free to previously installed Models 520, 640, 660, 740, 820, 860, and 900 through a system engineering change.

PR/SM Multi Imaging Assists

IBM says that Escon Multiple Image Facility channel sharing among PR/SM logical partitions may reduce the number of channels required to access the 3990, 9343, 3490, 3490E, and 3174 operating in SNA mode, and Escon Multiple Image Facility reduces the number of channels required for Escon channel-to-channel connectivity between multiple system images. Escon Multiple Image Facility channel sharing permits an increase in the number of PR/SM logical partitions on a processor without requiring additional channels, and single processor installations not using an Escon Director may be able to implement Escon Multiple Image Facility channel sharing to reduce requirements for Escon adaptors on control units. The processor channel subsystem provides physical path sharing by exploiting the logical addressing capability of the Escon Architecture, while at the same time providing comparable system performance to configurations not sharing channels. Escon Multiple Image Facility enables PR/SM logical partition sharing of Escon channels operating in either CNC – an Escon channel attached to an Escon capable device – or CTC mode. PR/SM LPAR mode now supports up to 10 logical partitions in single image configurations and up to 20 logical partitions for systems that are operated in a physically partitioned configuration. In addition, the limit on parallel byte channels per side has been increased to 10 from eight. Escon CTC channel has been enhanced to support basic mode, and parallel CTC basic mode environments requiring 3088 Multisystem Channel Communication Units may be migrated to Escon. IBM says that Logical String Assist provides instructions that more efficiently process string data types. The assist provides architected instructions to compare two strings until either an inequality or a specified ending character is found; move a string until a specified ending character is found; search a string of specified length for a specified character. The Asynchronous Pageout Facility provides more effective movement of pages from central to expanded storage.

MVS/ESA SP Version 4 Release 3

MVS/ESA SP 4.3 includes enhancements to Advanced Program-to-Program Communications, to the Hardware Configuration Definition and to the base control program. IBM says that enhancements to APPC/MVS are designed to simplify resource management in an APPC co-operative processing environment. Hardware Configuration Definition, together with Escon Manager 1.2, provides a SystemView-conforming graphical user interface on a PS/2 for MVS/ESA environments. Also, MVS/ESA has been enhanced to support the Escon Multiple Image Facility more fully. With the addition of APPC/MVS Server Facilities, MVS provides installations with the language callable services for writing to APPC/MVS servers. Because the

new callable services are available to unauthorised MVS application programs, APPC/MVS Server Facilities provide a method for unauthorised programs to establish cross-memory communications. A client-server application can use APPC/MVS Server Facilities to establish multiple, concurrent conversations between a client and its server. An installation can centralise, within a single server address space, many of the requests for resources made during transaction processing, and one server address space can be used to serve many users concurrently. APPC/MVS application processing rates may improve in certain environments in conjunction with resource access control facility. Along with DFSMS/MVS 1.1, system functionality may be improved by enhancements to checkpointrestart, which will now function with data spaces, VSAM Hiperspaces, and VSAM LSR, extending data-in-memory benefits to additional applications that use checkpointrestart.

Logical String Assist

MVS/ESA SP 4.3 supports the use of the Logical String Assist function and support for this function will be provided with the SAA AD/Cycle C/370 compiler. There are enhancements to systems management in configuration management, communications on Escon channels, dump processing and analysis, system tuning and customisation, storage management, security and automatic job restart for a specific JES2 recovery situation. Hardware Configuration Definition provides a new graphical user interface feature and integration of Hardware and Escon Manager configuration definitions. The graphical interface feature, together with Escon Manager 1.2 and ScreenView, a feature of MVS/ESA SP Version 4, provides a single SystemView-conforming graphical user interface the PS/2. Also, cross operating system support is provided by extending the Hardware Configuration Definitions to the VM/ESA environment, and users can define hardware configurations for one or more MVS and VM operating systems and channel subsystems from a single point. MVS/ESA SP Version 4 Release 3 also now includes Escon channel-to-channel basic mode support. IBM says that Posix support on MVS/ESA will consist of A Posix system application programming interface for C language; a shell and utilities; and a dbx debugger. Charges go from $32,810 to $676,850 for processor groups 18 to 80, and distributed systems licence options are between $24,600 and $507,650. Monthly licences are from $683 to $14,100, and distributed licences range from $512 to $10,570. Under the new Multiple Operating System charge for PR/SM – MOSP – the charges go from $32,810 to $609,050, and distributed licence options range from $24,600 to $456,800 for groups 18 to 80.