• SNA and I Systems

    From CENTRINO@none@nonelandia.com to comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc on Thu Nov 28 10:53:11 2019
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

    We have a communications infrastructure based on SNA between 3 old AS/400.

    We are to upgrade to latest versions. Is SNA still supported by the
    latest OS ?

    Thanks in advance.
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  • From Jonathan Bailey@jonathan.bailey@tesco.net to comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc on Fri Nov 29 05:38:03 2019
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

    On Thursday, 28 November 2019 10:53:13 UTC, CENTRINO wrote:
    We have a communications infrastructure based on SNA between 3 old AS/400.

    We are to upgrade to latest versions. Is SNA still supported by the
    latest OS ?

    Thanks in advance.
    I have never setup SNA since getting access, only IP. I am at 7.3 now but all those SNA commands I never used still look like they are there. All the parameters for eg CRTDEVPRT look like they exist for SNA as well as the twinax settings - although I read the twinax controllers were going away by about 7.1.
    You had better read the memo to users for each of the versions you are passing eg SF98116
    I only see a few mentions of SNA in the memos for 7.1, 7.2 & 7.3
    There is a lot of other stuff in there over about 200 pages. I dont remember being much worried by anything except the loss of twinax console on the way from 5.4 to 7.1. The LAN console was a great improvement if anything allowing remote access, but the new HMC we now have is just a waste of everything AFAICS. In fact to update the 1 set of firmware I have its actually painfule compared with getting the fix in the cum package & applying like any other PTF.
    Happy reading,
    Jonathan
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  • From poc@poc@pocnet.net to comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc on Tue Dec 3 21:50:18 2019
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

    CENTRINO <none@nonelandia.com> wrote:

    We have a communications infrastructure based on SNA between 3 old AS/400.

    We are to upgrade to latest versions. Is SNA still supported by the
    latest OS ?

    Thanks in advance.

    Yes, it's certainly supported. With a quirk:

    Older machines were talking SNA directly to the physical layer, Token Ring or Ethernet. This "direct" approach is supported only with certain network adapters and with and IOP on these. A 2838 works fine, while a Gigabit Adapter cannot be configured for it and can only utilize IP connectivity.

    Newer releases of the OS (V5R3 or V5R4, I think) have introduced a feature called enterprise extender. This is an encapsulation of SNA APPN frames into IP/UDP. Since IP is the real transport protocol (and APPN runs on top of this "fake" link), there is no restriction about adapters, etc. Drawback is that older releases of the OS don't know about this EE feature and so can't be networked with EE only machines.

    From here, you have a few otions to migrate data. If you want more advice, please provide more details what exactly needs to be done with the data and the old machines.

    :wq! PoC

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  • From Grant Taylor@gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net to comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc on Tue Dec 3 17:15:30 2019
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

    On 12/3/19 2:50 PM, poc@pocnet.net wrote:
    Yes, it's certainly supported. With a quirk:

    :-)

    I'm a n00b. I know very little about mainframes and even less about
    AS/400s. (I'm that name to match the newsgroup.)

    But, I do like to learn by reading what others say. And I have some questions:

    Older machines were talking SNA directly to the physical layer, Token
    Ring or Ethernet. This "direct" approach is supported only with certain network adapters and with and IOP on these. A 2838 works fine, while
    a Gigabit Adapter cannot be configured for it and can only utilize
    IP connectivity.

    Okay.

    I'd love to know more about the differences. I immediately have lots of questions as I'm dealing with TCP/IP on Ethernet II a.k.a. DIX vs 802.2
    LLC w/ SNAP on my P/390-E.

    So the IBM i operating system still supports SNA. But it's dependent on
    the hardware. (Back to questions about supported framing for 2838 vs
    Gigabit Adapter.)

    Newer releases of the OS (V5R3 or V5R4, I think) have introduced a
    feature called enterprise extender. This is an encapsulation of SNA
    APPN frames into IP/UDP. Since IP is the real transport protocol (and
    APPN runs on top of this "fake" link), there is no restriction about adapters, etc. Drawback is that older releases of the OS don't know
    about this EE feature and so can't be networked with EE only machines.

    Does Enterprise Extender have a remote hardware component that will de-encapsulate SNA out of the UDP/IP for local non-EE aware systems? Or
    is EE only meant to be between two systems running EE to transfer SNA
    traffic across a non-SNA capable interconnection?

    Does IBM i support DLSw? My understanding is that DLSw can take
    encapsulated traffic and de-encapsulate it for local SNA systems. I
    think both Cisco and Juniper make gear that does this.

    From here, you have a few otions to migrate data. If you want more
    advice, please provide more details what exactly needs to be done
    with the data and the old machines.

    :wq! PoC

    I like the signature.

    Sorry for all the mainframe references. I'm very much aware that AS/400
    / iSeries / IBM i are decidedly different than the mainframe.
    Unfortunately, mainframe is where my minimal knowledge comes from. Save
    for "wrkwrt" from 20+ years ago as an junior operator.
    --
    Grant. . . .
    unix || die
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  • From CENTRINO@none@nonelandia.com to comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc on Wed Dec 4 11:20:41 2019
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

    Thanks !

    We are using ANYNET that's SNA over tcpip an older form of enterprise
    extender I think ... Hope this will work too with the new machine adapters.


    El 03/12/2019 a las 21:50, poc@pocnet.net escribi||:
    CENTRINO <none@nonelandia.com> wrote:

    We have a communications infrastructure based on SNA between 3 old AS/400. >>
    We are to upgrade to latest versions. Is SNA still supported by the
    latest OS ?

    Thanks in advance.

    Yes, it's certainly supported. With a quirk:

    Older machines were talking SNA directly to the physical layer, Token Ring or Ethernet. This "direct" approach is supported only with certain network adapters and with and IOP on these. A 2838 works fine, while a Gigabit Adapter
    cannot be configured for it and can only utilize IP connectivity.

    Newer releases of the OS (V5R3 or V5R4, I think) have introduced a feature called enterprise extender. This is an encapsulation of SNA APPN frames into IP/UDP. Since IP is the real transport protocol (and APPN runs on top of this
    "fake" link), there is no restriction about adapters, etc. Drawback is that older releases of the OS don't know about this EE feature and so can't be networked with EE only machines.

    From here, you have a few otions to migrate data. If you want more advice, please provide more details what exactly needs to be done with the data and the
    old machines.

    :wq! PoC


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  • From poc@poc@pocnet.net to comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc on Wed Dec 4 22:01:25 2019
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

    CENTRINO <none@nonelandia.com> wrote:

    We are using ANYNET that's SNA over tcpip an older form of enterprise extender I think ... Hope this will work too with the new machine adapters.

    EE replaced AnyNet. It's not compatible with each other.

    :wq! PoC

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  • From Dr.UgoGagliardelli@do.not.spam@me.please to comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc on Thu Dec 5 07:35:13 2019
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

    Il 05.12.2019 01.00, Grant Taylor ha scritto:
    On 12/4/19 3:00 PM, poc@pocnet.net wrote:
    No problem. I also started as a noob about 10 years ago, but I'm
    primarily interested in this platform for hobbyist purposes.

    I am interested in System/36 (?) / AS/400 / IBM i but I've not scratched that itch yet.-a (Was System/36 the 3x model that proceeded the AS/400?
    Or was it 32 or 34?)

    It's true that the as/400 was released with a S/36 environment, but the
    real inheritance comes from S/38.

    [...]

    zOS also knows about APPN, so maybe network both machines is easier
    than anticipated. Don't know which version is necessary, though. For
    older releases you maybe need a 37xx frontend controller. Same goes
    for EE (Enterprise Extender), which enables you to talk betwen IBM i
    and zOS without SNA frames but with IP as transport.

    I'm surprised that EE is /needed/ for contemporary IBM i and z/OS to
    talk to each other /without/ SNA.

    If you don't need SNA thus you don't need EE, assuming that tne network
    is TCP/IP based. Both i and z/os support socket based application.
    APPC over TCP is indeed a socket based application, that's supported
    also by newere IBM i, what I don't know is whether it's also supported
    by z/os.

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  • From Grant Taylor@gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net to comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc on Thu Dec 5 19:07:53 2019
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc

    On 12/4/19 11:35 PM, Dr.UgoGagliardelli wrote:
    It's true that the as/400 was released with a S/36 environment,
    but the real inheritance comes from S/38.

    Thank you for the clarification.

    I forgot about the System/38.

    If you don't need SNA thus you don't need EE, assuming that tne network
    is TCP/IP based. Both i and z/os support socket based application.

    Sure. Bit I was looking for something a bit less Open Systems, if you
    will, than FTP / Telnet. (More below.)

    APPC over TCP is indeed a socket based application, that's supported
    also by newere IBM i, what I don't know is whether it's also supported
    by z/os.

    This is more what I was thinking about and looking for. I don't know if APPC/TCP is supported by z/OS or not. I'll find out at some point in
    the future.
    --
    Grant. . . .
    unix || die
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