Atlanta - IBM next week will unleash communications software designed to reduce the pain and cost of building large interconnected SNA and TCP/IP backbones.
The company will roll out tn3270E server and load balancing software for off-loading communications processing from mainframes and spreading it among less expensive data center connectivity hardware. The tn3270E software gives PC users access to SNA resources via IP links.
Executives outlining IBM's connectivity plans at last week's Share user group meeting confirmed that the company will outfit its 3746 front-end processor, 2216 multiprotocol switch and low-end 2210 router with the new software.
IBM already offers a mainframe-based tn3270 package, but the new software should be less expensive to run, executives said. Customers also have the option of running a tn3270 server from IBM's server software suites, but the new packages are targeted at much larger networks.
The new software also will help IBM compete more effectively with the likes of Cisco Systems, Inc., which already has a tn3270E server in its channel-attached router. Other vendors, such as Bay Networks, Inc., are looking to grab a piece of the multibillion dollar data center connectivity pie, too. Bay last week unveiled its own channel-attached router with a tn3270 gateway.
Customers, such as Boeing Co. in Seattle, are happy that tn3270 connectivity choices are growing.
"We like tn3270 because tn3270 clients are available from a wide variety of emulation vendors. Java applets now contain tn3270 for Web browsers and [we can use] tn3270 clients to communicate with most of our [trading partners] over the Internet," said Craig Stolze, a network systems analyst with the aircraft maker, which uses software from Apertus Technologies, Inc. to control more than 20,000 tn3270 sessions flowing through its backbone.
"We depend heavily on easy access to our SNA applications, particularly [an IBM IMS transaction processing database] over TCP/IP, so tn3270 is critical to that," Stolze said. "The ability to off-load [processing from] servers, provide high availability and load balance are also key factors."
Indeed, those are some of the driving forces behind the IBM announcement.
Users can more easily and inexpensively scale tn3270 environments just by adding another 2216, said Gilles Garcia, a member of IBM's WAN and server access team in La Gaude, France. A stripped-down 2216 can cost about $12,000.
Garcia noted that as part of this announcement, IBM will more than double the number of sessions and users the 3746 and 2216 can handle to 30,000 and 5,000 from 6,400 and 1,500, respectively. This way, customers can support more links and sessions for the same amount of money.
By adding tn3270E server support to the low-end 2210 router, which can cost as little as $1,500, the cost of adding tn3270 servers goes down even more, Garcia said. Plus, users can locate a tn3270 server closer to remote users if necessary.
IBM will help customers build more efficient SNA-to-TCP/IP backbones with the release of Dispatcher load-balancing software for the 37xx, 2216 and 2210. Tthis software discovers TCP/IP net device addresses and, based on customer-defined parameters, directs incoming traffic to the least busy net device.
Net Dispatcher is the software IBM used to manage the huge amount of traffic generated by its Summer Olympics Web site last year. In its first iteration, Net Dispatcher ran on IBM's SP2 and RISC System/6000-based servers.
If a server or communications device crashes, Net Dispatcher will redirect traffic to another server or device. New devices easily can be brought online and old devices can be taken offline for maintenance without disrupting usage, IBM said.
IBM did not release pricing or availability of the new packages.
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