Meaning – The term ‘enterprise systems connection’, refers to the optical fiber interface created by IBM in the early 1990s to connect mainframe computers to peripheral devices such as tape drives, hard drives, and disk storage devices. ESCON replaced the earlier, more costly, and slower copper-based, parallel bus and tag channel technology. This interface employed the use of a serial half-duplex construction.
ESCON is currently being replaced by IBM’s newer Fiber Connection (FICON) technology, which uses Fiber Channel Protocol to produce higher speeds that can run over longer distances.
ESCON was originally operated at a rate of 10 Mbyte/s, which was later increased to 17Mbyte/s.
Example of usage – “The organization made extensive use of the ESCON technology, but over time, they had to switch to the newer FICON technology to stay in tune with the times.”
