Hitachi Data Systems today announced the general availability of FIbre CONnection (FICON) for the Hitachi Freedom Storage Lightning 9900 Series.
Fanie van Rensburg, MD of local distributor Shoden Data Systems, says that FICON - as a replacement for the current ESCON connectivity - greatly improves data transfer rates, requires fewer channel connections, and supports greater distances between Lightning 9900 storage systems and z/OS or S/390 mainframes.
"Storage administrators benefit from faster data access, higher transaction rates, higher speed data movement between mainframe servers and storage devices, simplified infrastructure management, and more geographically dispersed data centres for optimal business continuity," he says.
"FICON overcomes the speed and distance limitations of ESCON connectivity for storage systems in mainframe environments," comments Robert Watson, vice-president International Business Division, Hitachi Data Systems. "The combination of Lightning 9900 storage systems and FICON connectivity enables customers to consolidate greater capacity in fewer systems. This means simplified data centre operations with reduced hardware and storage management costs."
"To help customers achieve these cost savings," continues Van Rensburg, "we will provide a comprehensive set of services to help customers migrate to FICON and consolidate storage systems."
FICON offers the advantages of Fibre Channel and storage area networking to customers using the Lightning 9900 storage systems in z/OS and S/390 environments. FICON delivers up to 100MB per second data transfer rates, expands the number of unit addresses per channel to 16 000 and increases the maximum distance to 10km, or 100km with extenders. The Lightning 9900 systems combined with FICON connectivity can consolidate the industry's highest storage capacity per controller.
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With offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town, Shoden Data Systems (Pty) Ltd is the sole distributor for Hitachi Data Systems in SA. In addition, Shoden Data Systems is the sole distributor of INRANGE Technologies Corporation, the world's leading manufacturer of Channel Extenders, Fibre Channel and ESCON/FICON directors. Shoden Data Systems is also a Veritas Premier Partner and provides integrated, managed, best-of-breed storage area network solutions to the marketplace.
Based on more than 200 collective years of experience in the service, support and marketing of Hitachi products, Shoden Data Systems uses its intellectual capital and industry leading products to provide customers with total solutions in the storage, enterprise servers and connectivity arenas. The following offerings are available:
1. 1. Storage - the HDS Freedom storage range, including Lightning 9900 and 9200 2. 2. Connectivity - the Inrange FC/9000 Fibre Channel/ FICON Director, ESCON Directors and Channel Extenders
Hitachi Data Systems
Committed to helping customers exploit the value of information technology for success in the Internet economy, Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd (NYSE:HIT), is a leading provider of business solutions for the world's most information-intensive corporations. For further information on Hitachi Data Systems, access www.hds.com.
Hitachi Ltd
Hitachi, Ltd, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 2000 (ended 31 March 2001) consolidated sales of 8 417 billion yen ($67.9 billion*) The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd, please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://global.hitachi.com.
* At an exchange rate of 124 yen to the dollar.
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