Frames and Cages  

Home Up

All page and chapter references in this document refer to:

IBM Redbook - IBM System z9 Enterprise Class Technical Guide - SG24-7124

  

 

The z9 EC frames are enclosures built to Electronic Industry Association (EIA) standards.  The server always has two frames that are composed of two 40 EIA frames. The A and Z frames are bolted together and have two cage positions (top and bottom).

 

Frame A has the CEC cage at the top and I/O cage 1 at the bottom.

 

Frame Z can be one of the following configurations:

  • Without I/O cage

  • With one I/O cage, I/O cage 2 at the bottom

  • With two I/O cages, I/O cage 2 at the bottom and I/O cage 3 on top

All books, the DCAs for the books, and the cooling components are located in the CEC cage in the top half of the A frame of the z9 EC. In Figure 2-8 on page 38, the arrows point to the front view of the CEC cage in which four books are shown as being installed.

 

 

A frame

 

As shown in Figure 2-8, the main components in the A frame are:

  • Two optional Internal Battery Features (IBFs). The optional Internal Battery Feature provides the function of a local uninterrupted power source.

    • The IBF further enhances the robustness of the power design, increasing Power Line Disturbance immunity.  It provides battery power to preserve processor data in case of a loss of power on both of the AC feeders from the utility company. The IBF can hold power briefly over a brownout, or for orderly shutdown in case of a longer outage. The IBF provides up to 13 minutes of full power, depending on I/O configuration.

 

  • One or two Modular Refrigeration Units (MRUs) that are air-cooled by their own internal cooling fans.

  • The CEC cage, containing up to four books, each with two insulated refrigeration lines to an MRU.

  • I/O cages can house all supported types of channel cards. An I/O cage accommodates up to 420 ESCON channels or up to 112 FICON Express4 channels in the absence of any other card. Up to three I/O cages are supported.

  • Air-moving devices (AMD) providing N+1 cooling for the MBAs, memory, and DCAs.

Z frame

 

As shown in Figure 2-8 on page 38, the main components in the Z-frame are:

  • Two optional Internal Battery Features (IBFs).

  • The Bulk Power Assemblies (BPAs).

  • I/O cage 2 (bottom) and I/O cage 3 (top). Note that both I/O cages are the same as the one in the A frame, and can house all supported types of channel cards.

    • The Z frame can hold only the bottom cage (I/O cage 2), or both the bottom and top I/O cages (I/O cage 2 and I/O cage 3).

  • The Support Element (SE) tray, located in front of I/O cage 2, contains the two SEs (not

    shown in Figure 2-8 on page 38).

I/O cages

 

There are up to 16 STI buses per book to transfer data, with a bi-directional bandwidth of 2.7 GB per second each. An STI is driven off an MBA fanout card. There are 8 MBA fanout cards per book, each driving two STIs, providing an aggregated bandwidth of 43.2 GB per second per book.

 

The STIs connect to I/O cages that may contain a variety of channel, Coupling Link, OSA-Express, and Cryptographic feature cards:

  • ESCON channels (16 port cards, 15 usable ports and one spare).

  • FICON channels (FICON or FCP modes).

    • FICON Express channels (two port cards) - carried forward during an upgrade only

    • FICON Express2 channels (four port cards) - carried forward during an upgrade only

    • FICON Express4 channels (four port cards)

  • ISC-3 links (up to four Coupling Links, two links per daughter card). Two daughter cards (ISC-D) plug into one mother card (ISC-M).

  • ICB-4 channels do not require a slot in the I/O cage and attach directly to the STI of the communicating server with a bandwidth of 2.0 GB/second.

  • ICB-3 channels require an STI-3 extender card in the I/O cage. The STI-3 extender card provides two output ports to support the ICB-3 links. The STI-3 card converts the 2 GB/s input from the MBA fanout into two 1 GB/s ICB-3 links.

  • OSA-Express channels:

    • OSA-Express Gb Ethernet - carried forward during an upgrade only

    • OSA-Express2 Gb Ethernet

    • OSA-Express2 10 Gb Ethernet LR

    • OSA-Express 1000BASE-T Ethernet - carried forward during an upgrade only

    • OSA-Express2 1000BASE-T Ethernet

  • Crypto Express2, with two PCI-X adapters per feature. A PCI-X adapter can be configured as a cryptographic coprocessor for secure key operations or as accelerator for clear key operations.
 

 

Order a book or two today - you can download an eBook today for only $1.99!

            

Just click on a book to learn more!