WAN design

I've got a project coming up where I will have the ability to completely
renovate a client's LAN and WAN. I would like to get some input from all
of you who may be using some of these topologies to see what seems to
work best with the AS/400.

First off, we will try to go TCP/IP over Ethernet as much as possible,
replacing most green-screen terminals with PC's, but we will probably
end up with a couple small sites using twinax terminals (1 terminal and
1 printer that get used 15 minutes every other day is not what we want
to try to support as a PC). My first thought is to put everything onto
frame relay and use some routers to connect all the sites. Most sites,
except the small ones, would probably get connected with a T1 line into
the frame relay network. Could any of you shed some light on your WAN's
and how you have them set up? Especially in regards to the routers (I'm
green on them) and how you handle sending SDLC traffic across the frame
relay network; I've read here about problems some of you have had in the
past with SDLC over frame relay and I'm curious what solved the problem.

We are also considering printing options. We currently have
twinax-connected laser printers and a 6252 printer in place. We are
thinking of replacing the twinax-connected laser printers with HP
LaserJet 8000's with a MPI Blue Kit IPDS chip and a JetDirect card. We
are also considering replacing the 6252 with something faster, such as a
6262. What are you doing for printing to the laser printers? Should I
use the MPI twinax cards as well or stick with a pure Ethernet
environment? What are all of you doing for your high speed impact
printing? Especially in a TCP/IP Ethernet environment.

Sorry for the long post and all the questions, but I would appreciate
any information anybody could provide. Please feel free to E-mail me
directly at: dboring@shl.com .

Thanks in advance!

David Boring
Systems Engineer
MCI Systemhouse
Direct: (562) 809-5460
E-mail: dboring@shl.com

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