Data center communications developer Bus-Tech Inc has unveiled a device that will enable organizations to attach their intranets directly to the mainframe. The Burlington, Massachusetts company has worked with IBM Corp, Microsoft Corp and Novell Inc to ensure the NetShuttle family of products are capable of taking hold of intranet enhancements as they evolve. NetShuttle has a range of network capability options, enabling users to attach to ethernet, token ring, fast ethernet, asynchronous transfer mode and others, and is apparently easily upgradable. The mainframe communication options include ESCON and parallel channel and support major protocols such as TCP/IP. To reduce protocol processing on the host, Bus-Tech says TCP/IP protocols can reside either on the mainframe, or inside NetShuttle. Bus-Tech was founded in 1987 and now claims to have an installed base of more than 7,000 mainframes to local area network installations. There are seven products in the NetShuttle family, ranging from an entry level system up to a high end product, and prices are between $10,000 and $28,000.
