RE: EDI SNA Dialing and VANS

SNA is dead, long live TCP/IP!

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Urbanek, Marty
Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 2:30 PM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: EDI SNA Dialing and VANS

Bryan,

The Sterling Commerce VAN, Sterling Information Broker, supports SNA
dialup.

http://www.sterlingcommerce.com/Services/HostedNetworkSolutions/index.ht
ml

You should consider that, just as you've seen with your current VAN,
IBM's direction is away from SNA. They have only committed to support
SDLC (used for SNA dialup) on the iSeries through one OS/400 release
after V5R3.

You might get a few more years out of SNA dialup, but eventually you
will have to switch.

Marty Urbanek
Sterling Commerce

------------------------------

date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 11:39:34 -0500
from: "Burns, Bryan" <burnsbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: EDI SNA Dialing and VANS

We've been put on notice that our EDI VAN,  GSX (formerly ADVANTIS)
which is
part of IBM Global Services, will no longer support SNA dialing as of
January 2006. Although they support EDI SSL FTP, we got a quote of
$10,000
for a software package that does that.  We're currently using INOVIS'
TrustedLink software for the actual EDI. 

Are there other VANS that support SNA dial?  Our company isn't cheap by
any
means, but the boss doesn't want to just spend the $10,000 without
looking
at all the alternatives. Perhaps we should change VANS to one that
supports
SNA dialing.  Perhaps we're not even getting a competitive rate with GSX
to
begin with.   

Anyone ever change VANS to save money?  How was the experience?


Bryan Burns
System Operator
ECHO, Inc.