Re: 5494 connection

I too might be making this overly complicated ... we have had to get an IBM 
tech in here to resolve some of these type challenges, and we have refrained 
from trying to install some of the latest micro code on our remote 
peripherals (if it aint broke don't mess with it).

A whole lot of this stuff is no longer subject to regular IBM maintenance, 
which is one reason I reccommend sticking with Perle, which does provide 
regular upgrades & maintenance support.  As I understand it, IBM sold their 
controller business to Cisco which decided not to bother with the AS/400 
market.

We now have AT+T Frame Relay, but converted to it this year from leased line 
in which we have 2 remote sites.
One has Perle emulating 4 IBM remote controllers.
Other has IBM 5394 emulating IBM 5494
We have had all of this equipment something like 10 years dating back to S/36

We have abandoned EDI but when we were using it, that came over our ECS line
We have periodically had consultants who connected to us via our ECS line in 
a swiched dial up method

Perle supports choice of point to point or dial up & both twinax & PC from 
same box, although we not using all options available to us.  We also do not 
have the latest & greatest Perle model.
IBM remote controller does not, to best of my knowlege ... it is purely for 
point to point connections, not switched dial up.

In other words there are different models of various equipment.
Some support twinax only
Some support PC networks but not twinax
Some support dial up switched but not point to point
Some support point to point but not switched dial up
Some support a mixture of the above

Sounds to me like you replaced hardware that supported a diversity of 
different connections with hardware that only supports one & you trying to 
use it on what it is not designed to support.  The person who made the 
decision to replace the hardware should be consulted as to how come they KNOW 
it would work.

As I understand the terminology ... dial up is the same as switched  which is 
a temporary connection like typical home PC modem to internet over voice 
phone line... point to point & multi point is all the time connection over a 
dedicated phone line by special (expensive) arrangements with ma bell, in 
which ma bell goes down occasionally but you have to pay same rate as if it 
is up all the time.  One of the reasons we ended up with Perle for many years 
on leased lines was that ma bell charged something like $1,000.00 extra a 
month just to have a second point 2 inches from 1st point at remote site & 
IBM did not seem to be pushing their great Tailing Modem (you can hang 4 
controllers off of a single modem), so by using Perle, ma bell thought we 
were on point to point while IBM & Perle thought we were on multi-point.

Another point of clarification ... I do not know if you can do SDLC via 
switched dial up ... in the past we always used SDLC for point to point & 
BISYNC for dial up, unless the software came with 100% of our needs supplied 
(I have had to tinker with the "T" specs of RPG but it has been a while since 
I stuck my nose in there).

At one time vendors reccommended that same brand model modem be used on both 
ends of point to point links - we do not use a lot of dial up, but we do have 
PC users on PC Anywhere & it sounds like many different ones work fine.

We no longer have IBM modems in our configuration, but we had to choose when 
getting modems

Modem for point to point that did not support dial up
Modem for dial up that did not support point to point
Modem connected to analog phone line that cannot communicate on digital line
Modem connected to digital phone line that cannot communicate on analog line
Some of the newer modems can do some combinations

You need to find out what brand model modem they have at remote line, then 
check on capabilities of modems at both ends.

> Subj:  5494 connection
>  Date:    07/17/2000 11:52:33 AM Central Daylight Time
>  From:    Todd.kidwell@3cc.co.wayne.mi.us (Todd kidwell)
>  
>  I need to establish a connection from a remote site to my AS/400 via a 
> 5494 controller using a dial-up (SDLC) link.  This site previously had a 
> connection with a Perle controller emulating a 5394 controller.  I'm not 
sure 
> what type of modem they have on the remote end, but they were coming 
through 
> on my ECS modem.
>  
>  I've searched the 5494 manuals, but they don't mention being able to 
> establish a switched, point-to-point (or multi-point) connection between 
the 
> controller and the AS/400.  We don't have any network cards in the 
controller 
> - only a twinax card.  I think I'm making this harder than it needs to be, 
> but I can't figure out how to make the modems establish the connection.
>  
>  Can anyone help me out with the necessary configuration for the line, 
> controller (both AS/400 and the 5494 controller), and modems?
>  
>  TIA,
>  
>  
>  
>  Todd Kidwell (Netstar)
>  AS/400 System Administrator
>  (313) 224-0578

Al Macintyre  ©¿©
http://www.cen-elec.com MIS Manager Programmer & Computer Janitor
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