VMS to SNA Communications

[Bill Bacco]

I currently have a legecy VAX running OpenVMS and the VMS/SNA product. On this VAX are background applications that communicate with an IBM mainframe computer using the 3270 terminal and 3287 printer emulation features of the VMS/SNA product. As part of this the VAX has a synchronous hardware interface card that talks through a third party modem which is no longer available or support on the market.

This VAX is also has physical connectivity to the IBM mainframe via the corporate ethernet network.

My questions are as follows:
1. Is there anyway to use the VMS/SNA product over the physical ethernet connection?

2. Does HP make or know of any software that will run under VMS that will allow a background application on the VAX to communicate with an IBM mainframe via TN3270 terminal and printer emulation?

I am trying to eliminate the no longer supported hardware and am looking for suggestions.

Thanks.

[Robert_Boyd]

Are you using the DECnet/SNA Gateway software or the Interlink package?

It's been about 10 years since I last supported a configuration running either of these, but I'm pretty sure that the more recent variants supported the direct Ethernet connections to the IBM world. The fun was always getting the IBM SNA guru to set up their end correctly.

Have you considered switching to using HP's TCP/IP as the backbone for what you need to do? There are TN3270 emulators that run over TCP/IP as well.

Robert

[Bill Bacco]

I am using OpenVMS SNA. Which is a software product. It includes a DECnet SNA 3270 Data Stream Programming Interface.

I believe there is something else called a DECnet/SNA Gateway, but this is not what I am using.

I do have Process Software's Multinet installed on this vax and it supports interactive TN3270 telnet sessions, but I don't believe it has a programming interface.

Does the HP TCP/IP product provide a programming interface to a TN3270 session? If it does, maybe we use it.

[Robert_Boyd]

Check out the companies listed at this page for possible alternative solutions:

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/network/partner.html

[Karl Rohwedder]

Bill,

VMS TCPIP-Services allow for direct access to IBM mainframes using telnet, you can specify the approp. terminaltype with the /TERMINAL_TYPE qualifier. This may not always work, e.g. if the IBM side uses fixed terminalnames for access control.

For printing, we were able to replace some emulated printers with LPD printing, but this may depend on your configuraton.

regards Kalle

[Stanley F Quayle]

One of my client sites had a couple of DESNB boxes that could do DECnet<-->SNA ethernet translation. The software was available for both Alpha and VAX. That might be a possibility.

But getting to IP would be a better solution. If they don't have an IP stack on the mainframe, you could say, "Which system is legacy??"

[Bill Bacco]

I don't know much about the IBM side, but the Mainframe must have an IP stack, since it supports TN3270 access which utilizes IP. I know that several of the VMS TCP/IP products (Multinet, HP TCPIP Services, etc.) support interactive TN3270 TELNET sessions.

I can utilize TCP/IP Stream Sockets on the VMS side, but the IBM folks don't seem to think it is available or they don't know how to do it.

What I really need on the VMS side is access to the TN3270 data stream via an application programming interface, similar to what is in the DECNET SNA 3270 Data Stream Programming product of OpenVMS SNA.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Keep them coming.

Bill