Hoping to keep its large SNA-base loyal to the company as they increasing look to build IP-based connections to existing SNA networks, IBM Corp is introducing a raft of new products and upgrades aimed connecting SNA and IP-based networks. There are enhancements to IBM’s 2210 and 2216 branch office routers and 3746 Multiaccess Enclosure to aid flexibility to access SNA-based data and applications located on IBM mainframe servers from IP- based workstations. Two new technologies included in the upgrades are IBM’s Enterprise Extender and its Branch Extender, which now cover the IBM eNetwork Software and Nways networking products. IBM says the technologies increase scalability of their offerings and that both will be submitted to industry organizations including the Advanced Peer-to-Peer Network (APPN) Implementers’ Workshop (AIW) and to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and will be made available to other vendors. It has scaled up its Nways Multiprotocol Services to put it on two WAN routers – the 2210 Nways Multiprotocol Router and the 2216 Nways Multiaccess Connector. Load balancing has been improved with the addition of the Network Dispatcher, which provides load-balancing requests to multiple web servers, enhancing response time, says IBM. IBM has also updated standard TN3270e server support for its 2210 and 2216 units with capabilities to allow access to SNA applications over IP as well as SNA High Performance Routing (HPR) networks. Additional new capabilities for the 2216 include new Fast Ethernet, FDDI and ATM adapters and User Diagram Protocol UDP support, which enables access to SAP R/3 applications residing on IBM mainframes. New ATM enhancements for the 2210 and the 2216 include the integration of the Next Hop Resolution Protocol NHRP, allowing direct connections across an ATM network and facilitating one hop routing. The new capabilities added to the 2216 have also been added to the host access gateway unit, the 3746 Nways Multinetwork Controller using the Multiaccess Enclosure feature.
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