Billerica, Massachusetts-based Ideassociates Inc company Idea has announced a new release of the Idea Concert communications processor which it says is designed to enables direct Token Ring communications to the IBM Corp AS/400. Concert 2.1 delivers the functionality of the IBM 5494 controller, the company claims, but offers support for simultaneous access to multiple AS/400s. Users can configure multiple host addresses within a single Idea Concert – and hosts can be AS/400s, S/3Xs or mainframes using the Idea Concert Crossover integration capability. Idea Concert starts with support for 16 devices, with the new Idea Concert Model 10193, up to a maximum configuration of 84 devices. The Idea Concert bridge-router option supports IP and IPX routing, enabling companies to unify their SNA and local networks via two wide area network ports and one Token Ring or Ethernet port. Both Spanning Tree transparent bridging and Source Route Bridging are supported. Concert SNA Datastream Management enables SNA protocol traffic to be routed over local internetworks, extracting the data stream from the SNA Path Information Unit and splicing a local networking layer address to it. The Concert Communication Processors range from $3,820 for 16-device support up to $17,470 for 84-device support.
