Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ibmtcp-l
Date:         Mon, 4 Jan 1993 13:01:00 GMT
From:         "Robert G. Moskowitz" <0003858921@MCIMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: IBM TCP/IP inadequacies

An interesting thread here to read on getting back from our year-end hiatus.

I might be an example of a large corporate customer.

We have tens of thousands of 3270 devices in our SNA network accessing CICS and
IMS.  There is heavy usage of one VM system for Office Vision Mail and meeting
scheduling.  There is relatively little use of TSO except by MIS programmers.

We are a major DB2 site, but a lot of data is in IMS and VSAM files as well.

Our needs are:

-       major TN3270 support
-       Common network based printer support (3287, UNIX, NOVELL, LAN Man)
-       Client/Server model for Data Access
-       Large scale reliable file transfer (like NDM)
-       CICS and IMS Sockets

Of course low CPU and memory utilization are very important.  Some of our ES9000
systems are pegged to the wall and the only way out is to move apps to new boxes
or hold our breath until faster boxes come out from IBM or AMDAHL.

I have one project scheduled for roll out the second half of '93 that will need
over 5000 concurrent 3270 sessions on one MVS image working at a rate of 150,000
tran/hr at current business rates (our sales are going up).  An IBM white paper
predicts an 8% CPU hit for us but there is no level of confidence in our
organization on this.  We are workin on an internal benchmark and have had
mostly CICS problems with our test bed (something about pounding too much on one
set of transactions against a VSAM test file).  We hope to get soem significant
testing done this month.

General network movement will require a lot more concurrent users on a number of
images as our PCs get connected.

The print stuff is a mess, but we have begun kludging it with OCS's gateway
software on a group of RS6000s.  This allows for 256 LPR redirects each.

The Client/Server stuff is running today with Sybase's Open Gateway/Server
product on a group of RS6000s.  First couple of pilots are running.

FTP is a bit of a joke for real life file transfers.  Too much can go wrong.  It
would be nice if CICS or something similar could do direct FTP calls so we could
use FTP in a program like our UNIXers do.

We are developing our first RPC app for CICS now.

As for MVS development, well DNS ahs to be in our future, but we have to figure
out in what way.  Right now we run from HOST tables.

SMTP to Office Vision is desired by our NEXT users, but most VM users are there
for meetings more so than mail, so they will continue to use VM directly.  This
presents a major problem on re-routing mail from the VM to SMTP or CC:Mail for
that matter when the mail message might be a meeting notice.  Like wise, given a
meeting system on the network, how would it inter-act?  So mail still needs a
lot more research this year.

Gopher is a great idea and I would love to implement it.  But it is a 'public'
system and I need a protocol that will work with ACF2.

User multiple logons is a b***h.  And with the use of Intersession to work with
USS tabel entries, there is a double MVs logon.  At least we will soon finally
implement global ACF2 'very soon' some of us here are already using it.  But I
really need a network security system like Kerberos where MVS would trust me
network logon and jsut give me access to the region I want.

BTW, I view th 3172 offload process as being a wrong route for us.  Too few
connections supported in the box...


Bob Moskowitz
Chrylser Corp
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU