San Jose, California-based Cisco Systems Inc has been giving an update on its plans for the IBM Corp-developed Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking technology, and says that it is planning to implement it on its entire range of multiprotocol routers next quarter. The company claims that it will support APPN over the industry’s broadest range of media, including Ethernet, Token Ring, FDDI, Frame Relay, SDLC, Asynchronous Transfer Mode and direct mainframe channel attachment. Cisco plans to incorporate APPN into its Internetwork Operating System and says that the initial release will support full Network Node support – including Dependent Logical Unit Requestor; IBM Class of Service (which enables SNA traffic to be prioritised by application); and the ability to route APPN data across the mainframe channel. Subsequently, says Cisco, High Performance Routing support will be added, although the timing depends on when IBM delivers the technology. The APPN software will be offered on Cisco’s 2500, 4500, 7000, 7010, and AGS+ routers at prices ranging from $600 to $5,000.
