IBM Communication Controller Migration Guide

An IBM Redbooks publication

Note: This is publication is now archived. For reference only.

Published 11 January 2006, updated 09 May 2006

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ISBN-10: 0738492558
ISBN-13: 9780738492551
IBM Form #: SG24-6298-02
(486 pages)

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Authors: Bob Louden

Abstract

IBM communication controllers have reliably carried the bulk of the world's business traffic for more than 30 years. Over the years, IBM controllers have been enhanced to the point that the functional capabilities of the current products, the 3745 Communication Controller and the 3746 Nways Multiprotocol Controller , surpass the capabilities of any other data networking equipment ever developed. Beyond the SNA architecture PU Type 4, beyond APPN, even beyond IP routing, these controllers support an extraordinary set of functions and protocols. Because of their long history and their functional richness, IBM controllers continue to play a critical role in the networks of most of the largest companies in the world.

Over the past decade, however, focus has shifted from SNA networks and applications to TCP/IP and Internet technologies. In some cases, SNA application traffic now runs over IP-based networks using technologies such as TN3270 and Data Link Switching (DLSw). In other cases, applications have been changed, or business processes reengineered, using TCP/IP rather than SNA. Consequently, for some organizations, the network traffic that traverses IBM communication controllers has declined to the point where it is in the organization’s best interest to find functional alternatives for the remaining uses of their controllers so they can consolidate and possibly eliminate controllers from their environments.

This IBM Redbooks publication provides you with a starting point to help in your efforts to optimize your communication controller environment, whether simply consolidating them or migrating from them altogether. We discuss alternative means to provide the communication controller functions that you use or ways to eliminate the need for those functions outright. Where multiple options exist, we discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages of each.

Table of contents

Part 1. Getting started
Chapter 1. What to do
Chapter 2. Controller optimization examples
Chapter 3. Hot topics - SNI, EP, BSC, and X.25
Part 2. Functional alternatives reference
Chapter 4. Communication controller hardware
Chapter 5. Network Control Program (NCP)
Chapter 6. X.25 NCP Packet Switching Interface (NPSI)
Chapter 7. MERVA Extended Connectivity
Chapter 8. X.25 SNA Interconnection (XI) and Network Supervisory Function (NSF)
Chapter 9. Emulation Program (EP)
Chapter 10. Network Terminal Option (NTO)
Chapter 11. Network Routing Facility (NRF)
Chapter 12. Non-SNA Interconnection (NSI)
Chapter 13. Teleprocessing Network Simulator (TPNS)
Part 3. Strategic solution technologies
Chapter 14. Net390 architecture
Chapter 15. OSA-Express
Chapter 16. Communication Controller for Linux on System z9 and zSeries (CCL)
Chapter 17. TCP/IP
Chapter 18. TN3270
Chapter 19. Enterprise Extender (EE)
Chapter 20. Message queuing (MQ)
Appendix A. Physical inventory worksheets
Appendix B. Logical and functional inventory worksheets
Appendix C. Avoiding VTAM network addressing problems

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