When planning to install new systems or LPARs you will need to consider the number and placement of IPL and operations consoles and associated controllers. Until recently, managing this growth required the addition of at least one IBM 3174 Establishment Controller or equivalent to support the startup of each zSeries and S/390 image. 2074 controller. The 2074's CD-ROM provides Optical Media Attach (OMA) support which can be useful for installations who no longer have tape drives but would like to work with software distribution CDs such as those used by from VM or z/VM."

Client console PCs can be connected to either 10/100 Mbps Ethernet or 4/16 Mbps Token-Ring Local Area Networks. The 2074 is a protocol converter that transforms 3174 non-SNA, Distributed Function Terminal (DFT) ESCON data streams into LAN-based TN3270E data streams; therefore client consoles must run a TN3270E emulator to connect to the IBM 2074. A recommended emulator is IBM eNetwork Personal Communications V5.0.

PC consoles can be located anywhere in your TCP/IP infrastructure, be it local in the data center or remote across the campus, the city, the country or even overseas, opening doors to potential savings in consolidating operations into selected sites, or, to facilitate movement and access by your operations staff.