RE: Fast400 Value to iSeries community is less than zero

[Jim Damato <jdamato@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>> Me:
>>Interactive processing as we know it on the AS/400
>>doesn't exist on an NT server.  Who hooks up a
>>bunch of workstations (real or virtual) to an
>>NT server?
>>
>>Terminal Server and Citrix are not exactly like hooking up
>>terminals to an AS/400 or telnet devices to Unix servers.
>
> Philip:
>It's close enough for it to be truly considered as 'interactive work' on a
>NT server, and given I can run the browser access plug-in on a fairly dumb
>NetStation is very close architecturally too.

"as we know it" is the operating phrase here.  Do you really think that the
Windows emulation of Citrix or the browser presentation of a web server are
anything like telnet or 5250?  My point was that a form of presentation is
built in to the AS/400 or a Unix (or VMS, or 390...) system.  Of course
interactive work *can* be done from an NT server, but you choose the
interface and install it as a (possibly third-party) layered product.  There
is no default terminal environment, so you may choose to handle
interactivity from a variety of environments on some type of client or
another server.

The whole point of my reply to Don's post was that traditional AS/400 apps
were built on top of a native, fixed environment.  Presentation and
application processing ran on the server, on a built-in interface.  If you
say "the heck with this -- it costs too much, I'm going to NT" you don't
hook up a workstation controller for your NT server and wire terminals, or
run emulation based on a standard NT terminal.  You get to choose from a
variety of solutions, some of which might defer presentation or application
processing to an apps server, or web server, or client.  Depending on what
you choose, or what is imposed on you by a software vendor you may end up
with significant middleware costs and administration costs to replace the
high cost of AS/400 interactivity.

-Jim