IBM 990 - Manual (Page 106)

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zSeries 990 Technical Guide
ESCON channel port enablement feature
The 15 active ports on each 16-port ESCON feature are activated in groups of four ports via
Licensed Internal Code - Control Code (LIC-CC), by using the ESCON channel port feature
(feature code 2324).
The first group of four ESCON ports requires two 16-port ESCON features. After the first pair
of ESCON cards is fully allocated (by seven ESCON ports groups, using 28 ports), single
cards are used for additional ESCON ports groups.
Ports are activated equally across all installed 16-port ESCON features for high availability. In
most cases, the number of physically installed channels is greater than the number of active
channels that are LIC-CC enabled. This is not only because the last ESCON port (J15) of
every 16-port ESCON channel card is a spare, but also because several physically installed
channels are typically inactive (LIC-CC protected). These inactive channel ports are available
to satisfy future channel adds.
If there is a requirement to increase the number of ESCON channel ports (minimum
increment is four), and there are sufficient unused ports already available to fulfill this
requirement, then IBM manufacturing provides an LIC-CC diskette to concurrently enable the
number of additional ESCON ports ordered. This is illustrated in Figure 3-10 on page 95. In
this case, no additional hardware is installed.
Note: The z990 16-port ESCON feature does not support a multimode fiber optic cable
terminated with an ESCON Duplex connector. However, 62.5 micron multimode ESCON
Duplex jumper cables
can be reused to connect to the 16-port ESCON feature. This is
done by installing an MT-RJ/ESCON Conversion kit between the 16-port ESCON
feature MT-RJ port and the ESCON Duplex jumper cable. This protects the investment
in the existing ESCON Duplex cabling plant.
Fiber optic conversion kits and Mode Conditioning Patch (MCP) cables are not
orderable as features on z990. Fiber optic cables, cable planning, labeling, and
installation are all customer responsibilities for new z990 installations and upgrades.
As mentioned, IBM Fiber Cabling Services offer a total cable solution service to help with
your cable ordering needs, and is highly recommended.