ESCON

[2][3] It replaced the older, slower (4.5 MB/s), copper-based, parallel, IBM System/360 Bus and Tag channels technology of 1960-1990 era mainframes.

Optical fiber is smaller in diameter and weight, and hence could save installation costs.

Space and labor could also be reduced when fewer physical links were required - due to ESCON's switching features.

ESCON allows the establishment and reconfiguration of channel connections dynamically, without having to take equipment off-line and manually move the cables.

The ESCON interface specifications were adopted in 1996 by ANSI X3T1 committee as the SBCON standard, which is now managed by X3T11.