Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!lll-tis!mordor!sri-spam!sri-unix!quintus!jbeard
From: jbeard@quintus.UUCP (Jeff Beard)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.ibm
Subject: Re: SUNLINK Users ??
Summary: cost effective
Message-ID: <985@eden.quintus.UUCP>
Date: 16 May 88 20:24:35 GMT
References: <8805120520.AA08711@jade.berkeley.edu>
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc: Mountain View, Ca
Lines: 43

In article <8805120520.AA08711@jade.berkeley.edu>, pte900@csc.anu.OZ.AU (Peter Elford) writes:
> 
> Has anyone got some experience with the SUNlink product that makes a SUN
> 3/160 look like a local controller to an IBM/MVS host and hence provides a
> TCP/IP gateway to the IBM host for other TCP/IP machines on the same network
> as the SUN ?
> 
> I would be interested in:
>     1) functionality - terminal emulation, file transfer ??
>     2) speed
>     3) cost effectiveness as compared to other IBM<->TCP/IP options ?
>     4) pros and cons
> 
We use SUNlink for access to TSO & VM access with
both interactive and ftp services.

Product is stable and useful.  The FTP operation requires a host session
(ie: user logged on), but that's the nature of LU2 3270 emulation.
It will allow multiple sessions (unique Host user_id's however) to/from
the Sun workstation, and with windows, you can FTP in one and still edit
from another(assuming you've got two log ons).

wish list:

FTP multiple files with one command.

	This gets to be a pain for large file set transfers in either
	direction.  

	
The EBCDIC/ASCII/EBCDIC translation provided fails on the characters

	[]{}\n

which limits the internal translator.

The tty to 3270 mappings get a bit involved, but it's managable.

We solved the FTP & translation issues by using our own GLUE.c program
and doing the translation ourselves from the SUN side.  The FTP
was executed without translation.  On the IBM Host, we UNGLUE the inbound
stream based on an internal header "*** <file.ext> ***".  
The Unix file.ext is mapped on the HOST as (MVS)?ddname=file"FN.FT=file.ext