Features

6.18 LPAR mode z/VM guest

The zfcp device driver supports a wide range of SCSI devices, various hardware adapters, specific topologies, and specific features that depend on the IBM® Z hardware.

Linux® on IBM Z can use various SAN-attached SCSI device types, including SCSI disks, tapes, CD-ROMs, and DVDs.
SAN access through the following hardware adapters:
- FICON® Express
- FICON Express2
- FICON Express4
- FICON Express8
- FICON Express8S (as of zEnterprise® EC12)
- FICON Express16S (as of IBM z13®)
- FICON Express16S+ (as of IBM z14®)
- FCP Express32S (IBM LinuxONE only, as of IBM LinuxONE II)
- FICON Express16SA (as of IBM z15®)
- FICON Express32S (as of IBM z16®)
- FICON Express32S-4P (as of IBM z17 ™)
You can order hardware adapters as features for mainframe systems.
See Fibre Channel Protocol for Linux and z/VM® on IBM System z®, SG24-7266 for more details about using FCP with Linux on IBM Z.
The zfcp device driver supports switched fabric and point-to-point topologies. You can use either of these topologies, provided that it is supported by your storage server.
As of zEnterprise, the zfcp device driver supports end-to-end data consistency checking.
As of zEnterprise and FICON Express8S, the zfcp device driver supports the data router hardware feature to improve performance by reducing the path length.

To find out whether a combination of device, Linux distribution, and IBM mainframe is supported, see the individual interoperability matrix for each storage device. The interoperability matrices are available at: www.ibm.com/systems/support/storage/ssic/interoperability.wss

For information about the maximum number of configurable devices, NPIV-enabled subchannels, and other configurations per FCP channel path, see Input/Output Configuration Program User's Guide for ICP IOCP, SB10-7172. Search for FCP Channel Path Limits.

For information about SCSI-3, the Fibre Channel Protocol, and Fibre Channel related information, see www.t10.org and www.t11.org