That OEM agreement with IBM Corp announced last week by Cisco Systems Inc, Menlo Park, Califronia, in which Cisco positioned its 7000 router as a replacement for IBM’s 3172, 3174 and 3745 local network-channel controllers (CI No 2,325), caught IBM by surprise. Cisco convened press conferences in the US and in Paris to detail its agreements with IBM’s Large-Scale Computing and Field Service Support groups for the former to provide mainframe channel attachment, and the latter site maintenance, for its Cisco 7000 router. The agreement with Large-Scale Computing comprises five parts: an OEM pact whereby Cisco will acquire Escon chips from IBM to use in its Escon router interface; an exchange of information, technology, engineering services and consulting for the design of a bus-and-tag router interface; Cisco licensing IBM to manufacture the interfaces Cisco develops; an accord authorising Cisco to acquire interfaces developed by IBM; and an accord authorising Cisco to test its channel-attach interfaces in diverse configurations at IBM’s facility in Poughkeepsie. The agreement with Field Service sets up IBM as the agent for all installation, maintenance and spare parts provision for all Cisco-IBM channel attach products. Within the context of the Large-Scale Computing agreement, said Gerard Rousset, Cisco Europe’s IBM market manager, IBM will produce the daughter boards, which will provide plug-in support for bus-and-tag or Escon architectures, while Cisco will manufacture the channel interface mother board. We will then buy what IBM makes, he said. The Cisco 7000 with mainframe channel attach, Rousset said, is a means for IBM users to lower the total cost of ownership and increase mainframe resource availability by replacing local network-channel gateways [3172s, 3174s and 3745s] that don’t bring any functionality. The Cisco 7000, he said, will ultimately support 3172 emulation, and Escon channel architectures, and two protocol environments VTAM and TCP/IP.

Eliminate a revenue stream

In response to a query of why IBM’s Large-Scale Computing division would have formed an agreement that aims to eliminate a revenue stream for the Networking Systems division, Dennis Drogseth, media consultant for IBM Networking said, [Replacing the 3172] is not what IBM is doing or recommending; that is purely Cisco’s spin. It’s true that the roles of the controllers are different from that of a multiprotocol router, but what Cisco is trying to do is to expand their business by positioning a multiprotocol router as a controller. Drogseth, who consulted IBM before responding, explained further: The reason IBM did this is for customers who are not using the 3172 for Escon or who don’t use a lot of 3745s, but who may have a lot of Cisco gear and may want to use Cisco in a channel-attach capacity… People using a 3172 for Escon or a 3745 or who don’t have a lot of Cisco equipment installed would have no motive that I can think of to install a Cisco router. Cisco contended that the need for greater transmission speeds and for lower operating costs would be reasons enough for a customer to opt for a Cisco 7000. The company asserts that its router will support a throughput of 136Mbps, which outstrips the capacity of either the 3172 or 3745. And, while saying it was too early to provide pricing for the 7000, Rousset said the router would be less expensive than a 3745, but competitive with the 3172 but with more performance. Responds Drogseth, The issues go far beyond speed; it depends on how you want to use Escon. What we can say is that the 3172 can push over 60Mbps in certain configurations (TCP/IP, large buffer size). There are lots of reasons for having channel attach and speed is only one of them. For example, if you are looking at channel attach, SNA routing is pretty important. Cisco admitted that the enhanced 7000, which will be generally available in the second half of 1994, would lack some of the SNA routing and SDLC concentration functionality of a 3745. The 3745’s SNA routing is lost with the Cisco 7000 until we have APPN

logic support at the end of 1994, Rousset said. – Marsha Johnston