Method and system to enable the transport of sysplex timer protocols over generic frame procedure networks

1. A method of enabling the transport of timer protocols using a generic frame procedure (GFP) network, said timer protocols including a defined optical initialization sequence, the method comprising the steps of:

transmitting said defined optical initialization sequence to a GFP mapper, said defined optical initialization sequence comprising a defined optical pulse and a specified clock rate; and

said GFP mapper detecting said defined optical pulse of said optical initialization sequence and generating a specified GFP frame to represent said initialization sequence having said defined optical pulse, said specified GFP frame being recognized by the GFP network as a control frame for timer initialization, including the GFP mapper mapping the specified clock rate in the optical initialization sequence to the specified GFP frame by identifying the specified clock rate in the optical initialization sequence, using a look-up table to convert the specified clock rate to a GFP code identifying said specified clock rate, and inserting said GFP code into said specified GFP frame.

2. A method according to claim 1 , wherein said timer protocol uses biphase encoding to encode clock data, and the method comprises the further steps of

recovering clock data from a data stream that uses said biphase encoding;

detecting a clock rate in said data stream; and

using a look up table to map said detected clock rate into a specific code for said control frame.

3. A method according to claim 2 , comprising the further step of using a defined GFP frame to designate a change in said clock rate.

4. A method according to claim 3 , comprising the further steps of:

transmitting the defined GFP frame to a recipient GFP mapper; and

said recipient mapper using a look up table to determine a desired clock frequency based on said defined GFP frame.

5. A method according to claim 1 , comprising the further steps of:

transmitting said specified GFP frame across a GFP network; and

if there is a disparity of data upon entering and exiting the GFP network, inserting a defined codeword into the GFP frame.

6. A method according to claim 1 , comprising the further step of inserting into the control frame a given number of timer idle characters to indicate data rate-adaptation.

7. A method according to claim 6 , wherein the inserting step includes the step of inserting said timer idle characters one at a time.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the transmitting includes

the GFP mapper determining the optical initialization sequence includes an optical pulse that matches a given optical pulse; and

the generating the specified GFP frame includes the GFP mapper generating the specified GFP frame in response to the GFP mapper determining that the optical initialization sequence includes an optical pulse that matches the given optical pulse.

9. A system for enabling the transport of timer protocols over network using a generic frame procedure (GFP) network, said timer protocols including a defined optical initialization sequence, the system comprising:

a GFP mapper for mapping data into a GFP frame; and

one or more processing units configured for transmitting said defined optical initialization sequence to said GFP mapper, said defined optical initialization sequence comprising a defined optical pulse and a specified clock rate,

wherein said GFP mapper detects said defined optical pulse of said optical initialization sequence and generates a specified GFP frame to represent said initialization sequence having said defined optical pulse, said specified GFP frame being recognized by the GFP network as a control frame for timer initialization, including the GFP mapper mapping the specified clock rate in the optical initialization sequence to the specified GFP frame by identifying the specified clock rate in the optical initialization sequence, using a look-up table to convert the specified clock rate to a GFP code identifying said specified clock rate, and inserting said GFP code into said specified GFP frame.

10. A system according to claim 9 , wherein said timer protocol uses biphase encoding to encode clock data, and the method further comprises:

recovering clock data from a data stream that uses said biphase encoding;

detecting a clock rate in said data stream;

using a look up table to map said detected clock rate into a specific code for said control frame.

11. A system according to claim 10 , wherein a defined GFP frame is used to designate a change in said clock rate.

12. A system according to claim 11 , wherein the defined GFP frame is transmitted to a recipient GFP mapper; and said recipient mapper uses a look up table to determine a desired clock frequency based on said defined GFP frame.

13. A system according to claim 9 , wherein said method further comprises:

said specified GFP frame is transmitted across a GFP network; and

a defined codeword is inserted into the GFP frame if there is a disparity of data upon entering and exiting the GFP network.

14. A system according to claim 9 , wherein a given number of timer idle characters are inserted into the control frame, one character at a time, to indicate data rate adaption.

15. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for enabling the transport of timer protocols over a generic frame procedure (GFP) network, said timer protocols including a defined optical initialization sequence, said method steps comprising:

transmitting said defined optical initialization sequence to a GFP mapper, said defined optical initialization sequence comprising a defined optical pulse and a specified clock rate; and

said GFP mapper detecting said defined optical pulse of said optical initialization sequence and generating a specified GFP frame to represent said initialization sequence having said defined optical pulse, said specified GFP frame being recognized by the GFP network as a control frame for timer initialization, including the GFP mapper mapping the specified clock rate in the optical initialization sequence to the specified GFP frame by identifying the specified clock rate in the optical initialization sequence, using a look-up table to convert the specified clock rate to a GFP code identifying said specified clock rate, and inserting said GFP code into said specified GFP frame.

16. A program storage device according to claim 15 , wherein said timer protocol uses biphase encoding to encode clock data, and the method steps further comprise:

recovering clock data from a data stream that uses said biphase encoding;

detecting a clock rate in said data stream; and using a look up table to map said detected clock rate into a specific code for said control frame.

17. A program storage device according to claim 16 , wherein said method steps further comprise using a defined GFP frame to designate a change in said clock rate.

18. A program storage device according to claim 17 , wherein said method steps further comprise:

transmitting the defined GFP frame to a recipient GFP mapper; and

said recipient mapper using a look up table to determine a desired clock frequency based on said defined GFP frame.

19. A program storage device according to claim 15 , wherein said method steps further comprise inserting into the control frame a given number of timer idle characters, one character at a time, to indicate data rate-adaptation.