Short for
Fiber Connection, or
Fiber Connectivity, IBM’s
fiber optic channel technology that extends the capabilities of its previous fiber optic channel standard,
ESCON. Unlike ESCON, FICON supports
full duplex data transfers and enables greater
throughput rates over longer distances. FICON uses a
mapping layer that is based on technology developed for
Fibre Channel and
multiplexing technology, which allows small data transfers to be transmitted at the same time as larger ones. IBM first introduced the technology in 1998 on its G5 servers.