Re: AS400 access via the Web

LANSA has a number of products that take 400 applications & put them on the 
web with security in advance of what is offered by IBM & the various 
application providers, so that a person with a PC & ordinary standard web 
browser can access the 400 URL & run the 400 software via the browser.  On 
the 400 side it does not know the difference between twinax or PC emulation 
or CA or browser ... it does not need to care about this ... it processes the 
user request quite fine thank you.

Check out http://www.lansa.com

Lansa has several competitors in this kind of business
which I am sure people on this list will be happy to tell you about if you ask

There is also the old fashioned but works fine & is inexpensive with easy 
download for a trial ... PC ANYWHERE from NORTON

We use this at Central.
Various people have a PC at the office that they use during the day while at 
work.
These same people have a PC at home ... they use PC ANYWHERE to go from their 
home computer to their work computer & from there access 400 jobs.  Their 
work computer has CA or 5250 emulation or NT ethernet or ... it does not 
matter ... if the work PC can get onto the 400, then the home PC via PC 
ANYWHERE can get to the same destination.  

I have some Security concerns because the level of security really needed for 
a PC inside the corporation are rather lower than those for people dialing in 
like this - as I have tried to tell my managers - IF YOU can dial into YOUR 
work PC from YOUR home PC, then some HACKER can pretend to be YOU & recently 
I have been telling them that this is precisely how Microsoft was hacked.

Once upon a time we also used CARBON COPY in our PERSONNEL DEPT, although 
conceptually it could also be used by QC or other departments.  What happens 
with CARBON COPY is that a PC at a remote site dials into a PC at corporate 
HQ & it is like the remote user is now controlling the HQ PC ... the reason 
we were doing this is that we wanted to keep all records for the department 
on the HQ PC while letting the remote sites also be able to access the master 
PC records that were not on the 400.  the PCs with this could also access the 
400 either from remote or when CARBON COPY dial in.  

I had a Security concern about this, because the people operating the PCs 
were perfectly capable of doing their jobs, but they were a bit mentally 
blurry when it came to wider computer topics & we had a recurring virus 
problem.  Some of our staff would get neat downloads from the internet, bring 
them into work, put them on their PCs at the office & now we had an infected 
PC.  People in the surrounding offices would be told DO NOT USE THAT PC until 
we finished fixing the problem, but there was also a common practice of 
taking PC documents developed on one PC, via diskette to actually print off 
of some other PC that had a better PC printer, so by this means computer 
viruses got transmitted within our office.

Since unresolved computer viruses were on PCs that were involved in CARBON 
COPY & PC ANYWHERE usage, I was wondering if viruses could also jump PCs via 
that means.

Perle Systems, which manufactures a range of connectivity products for the 
400, has a number of white papers on the issues of connecting PCs to 400 & 
this issue, that you raised about remote support, is one of the issues.  
Other issues include:
Security on PC is often quite different & inferior to security on the 400;
Who owns the software used for connectivity - you want to avoid some 
licensing arrangement where if the employer & employee part company the 
software on the computer does not belong to the owner of the computer;
Of the many products out there, some of them have a burden upon PC resources, 
that add to the instability of PCs & Windows;
Ideally whatever you put on a PC should be something that requires minimum 
400 know-how, so that any remote site can get a service call from any 
standard micro computer place, without messing up the 400 connection;
there is a bandwidth issue with respect to how software is designed - you 
want to minimize what has to be communicated in case the remote PC is on a 
poor residential phone line;
you also want your mobile users to be able to connect from a lap top;
you want something that will work on just about any PC to minimize your 
support demands & help your users help each other because they are using the 
same stuff;

Unfortunately it has been a while since I read this stuff so I not remember 
the exact name of the reference documents, but you might start with
http://www.perle.com

Perle has several competitors in this business, such as IO, but I am only 
familiar with Perle.  I am sure that other people on this list can tell you 
the pros & cons of Perle competition if you interested.

> Subj:  AS400 access via the Web
>  Date:    02/25/2001 10:56:27 AM Central Standard Time
>  From:    dwillenborg@jcrob.com (Dave Willenborg)
>  
>  Good Morning:
>  
>  Currently I have users accessing the AS/400 via internet access using
>  Client Access Express. This solution was great if it is installed on a
>  company computer that we can control the "extra" software that is added to
>  the computer.
>  
>  We are having some problems when requested to install CAE on a home
>  computer system especially when the user is not very computer
>  knowledgeable. We do not have the support staff to go to an employees
>  home, install CAE and then go back whenever there is a problem with the
>  home computer.
>  
>  I am looking for a 5250 emulation package that I can install on our AS/400
>  webserver, add a login section to the AS/400 on our website and run 5250
>  emulation without downloading anything to the employee's personal
>  computer. This emulation package must be able secure as we are using SSL
>  also.
>  
>  Does anyone have any experience with this type of package or suggestions
>  for a package?
>  
>  TIA
>  
>  Dave Willenborg
>  MIS Manager 
>  J C Robinson Seed Co
>  dwillenborg@jcrob.com


MacWheel99@aol.com (Alister Wm Macintyre) (Al Mac)
AS/400 Data Manager & Programmer for BPCS 405 CD Rel-02 mixed mode (twinax 
interactive & batch) @ http://www.cen-elec.com Central Industries of 
Indiana--->Quality manufacturer of wire harnesses and electrical 
sub-assemblies - fax # 812-424-6838

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