PSF/AIX: PSF Direct using SNA ethernet
ITEM: RTA000106688
Q:
ABSTRACT: PSF Direct using SNA ethernet
SEARCH ARG: psf direct ethernet
TOPIC THREAD: PRINT
PSF/AIX
..
My customer is planning on implementing the following solution.
Please validate this for me and let me know of any potential
problems. They plan to use PSF/MVS to communicate with PSF Direct
using SNA and ethernet. Then there will be a 370 channel card in
the RS6000 attached to a 3900-001. All of the examples in the PSF
Direct Network Configuration Guide are for SNA token ring. I believe
that this will work also with ethernet if we can get it configured
correctly.
I realize that we need SNA Server for the RS6000 to make
this connection as well as PSF/AIX. Is there anything else that we
would require? I assume also that we would be better of if we could
set up a private segment for the ethernet connection to the RS6000
thereby avoiding collisions. I do not know if this is possible yet.
Are there any bandwidth issues I need to be aware of. I usually plan
for about 229KB of bandwidth for a remote 3900. We are proposing
a C20 RS6000 which would be dedicated to the printer. We plan to also
allow lan printing to go to the 3900 allowing the transformation
of PCL and PostScript. I assume we can "share" the 3900 between the
host and the LAN the same as if it were a token ring environment.
Is this assumption correct? Is there anything else you can think of
that we should do or be aware of? Thanks for the help.
A:
The underlying physical medium doesn't matter as long as the
host VTAM and Communications Server for AIX (or its predecessor,
SNA Server/6000) can establish an LU6.2 conversation. Ethernet is
supported in this environment. You're correct that there isn't
formal documentation for an Ethernet connection using PSF Direct on
AIX; however, there are examples in the PSF Direct Network Configuration
Guide for 3172 connection of token-ring; use of that in combination
with PSF/2 documentation for Ethernet connection have enabled others
to set up PSF Direct using PSF/AIX over Ethernet. See libraried ASKQ
item RTA000092459 for a similar question.
As far as the performance rate, I would recommend that you check out
the PSF/2 and PSF/6000 PSF Direct Performance Guide that is available
by request from the PENNCONF disk:
REQUEST PSF6PERF PACKAGE FROM PENNCONF AT BLDVMB (yourname AT yournode
There is some discussion in there of needed bandwidths. The bottleneck
will be the slowest component of the link between the host and the
bandwidth. I'm out of the office today and don't have access to
my copy of this document to check the numbers, so I urge you to
obtain it and review it, particularly the section on bandwidth.
Yes, you can share the 3900 between the host and LAN using the timers
described in the PSF Direct Network Configuration Guide. However, if
you're planning to transform PCL and PostScript as input datastreams,
a C20 may not be sufficiently powerful. Both the PCL and PostScript
transforms in PSF/AIX V2.1 are floating-point intensive and generally
perform better on RS/6000s with Power2 or P2SC chips. There are other
ASKQ items available that discuss this in greater detail. Let me know
if you are unable to locate them.
I hope this helps.
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:
Ethernet Direct PSF/AIX PSF/6000 PSF AIX sharing share timers LAN
LU6.2 3172 performance pcl postscript SNA
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000106688 ITEM: RTA000106688
Dated: 01/1999 Category: XPSF6000
This HTML file was generated 99/06/24~12:43:34
Comments or suggestions?
Contact us