advantages and disadvantages between FICON and FCP are much alike. Some mainframe-specific setups, such as GDPS, require FICON (or its predecessor ESCON). Mainframe-attached storage, such as IBM's System Storage DS8000, often supports both protocols. The storage is divided into fixed block storage volumes (accessed with FCP) and mainframe-specific CKD/ECKD storage volumes (accessed with FICON and/or ESCON). Devices Disk storage products that can be attached via FICON include: EMC Symmetrix, DMX and VMAX families Hewlett Packard Enterprise XP Storage family Hitachi Vantara Virtual Storage Platform Hitachi Vantara Virtual Storage Platform G1000 Hitachi Vantara Virtual Storage Platform G1500/F1500 Hitachi Vantara Virtual Storage Platform 5000 IBM Enterprise Storage Server (Shark) IBM Storage DS6000 and DS8000 INFINIDAT InfiniBox StorageTek FlexLine V2Xf/V2X4f SVA Tape storage facilities include: Advanced TS Migrations, Co. zAppliance Solutions VTL and zPDT data exchange Bus-Tech(EMC) MAS and MDL Virtual Tape Library EMC Disk Library for mainframe (DLm) IBM 3584 UltraScalable Tape Library (TS3500) IBM TS7680G ProtecTIER Deduplication Gateway for System z IBM Virtual Tape Server (VTS) Luminex Mainframe Virtual Tape (MVT) and CGX Solutions Oracle StorageTek SL3000 and SL8500 Tape Library Oracle StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager Tributary Systems Storage Director Hardware Security Module (HSM) products that support FICON include: Thales payShield 9000 Switches/directors that support FICON include: NOKIA (formerly Alcatel-Lucent) 1830 PSS Brocade DCX family Brocade M-Series (McDATA) Cisco MDS 9000 Series EMC Connectrix family (made by Brocade or Cisco) Managed File Transfer products that support FICON include: Alebra Technologies Parallel Data Mover Luminex Mainframe Data Integration (MDI) Platform Other older FICON switching platforms are still in use. These include the McDATA 6064, CNT UMD, and CNT (Inrange) FC/9000. Inrange was acquired by CNT in 2003, CNT was acquired by McDATA in 2005, and in 2007 McDATA was in turn acquired by Brocade Communications Systems. Approximately 80% of FICON directors and switches installed in mainframe environments were Brocade products at the time. McDATA was well established in the mainframe directors space, manufacturing the 9032-3 and 9032-5 ESCON directors for IBM, as well as the FICON Bridge Card. Brocade has many co-patents with IBM for FICON and ESCON technology. Cisco Systems was a relative newcomer to this space, with their first FICON director coming out in 2003. Other manufacturers producing FICON-compatible equipment include Optica Technologies, and InfoPrint Solutions Company, which offers high-volume printers that can attach via FICON. References Fibre Channel IBM System/360 mainframe line