NJE was developed as companies began deploying multiple mainframes at multiple locations. NJE allows for the exchange of jobs and print between peer hosts. Work can be submitted at one location in an enterprise, processed at another location and printed at a third location. NJE also enables users to transmit files without the need for programming, and receive output from the host. In addition, these users can send and receive print data sets and batch jobs.
Users can also receive notification of job completion.
In NJE communications, mainframes attach headers to jobs and data sets. These message headers contain a rich set of user and job information that is preserved when the job is routed from node to node. Routing headers provide the ability to add intelligence to NJE-based processing. Header information, including information about a job's originator, is always generated by the mainframe. However, the mainframe does not include these headers in the case of an RJE transmission.