Re: VPN & web enabling applications -- MIDRANGE-L

Greetings!

My thoughts are noted inline . . .

>>> gkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 04/08/03 04:33AM >>>

>> OBJECTIVE: Develop a strategy to enable secure, stable web based/browsing
>> and CAE/400 access to our iSeries applications. Our organinization is a
>> large medical facility supporting over 100 physicians onsite, and it will
>> also require additional support for multiple (30+) remote locations.

Medical - therefore security and HIPAA are major concerns.  Good luck!

>> I would like to provide support to users via browsers for 5250 apps
>> (something along the lines of CGIDEV2 perhaps?), along with the iSeries
>> developers who will be using traditional CAE/400 5250 to do development
>> (some code/400 users too), remote support and testing, as well as access the
>> apps too.

This is a perfect application for WebFacing, or for one of the third party 
alternatives.  I am surprised we haven't heard from Joe Pluta yet ;-)

>> We have two iSeries, one for production and one for development - the
>> development system is also our production Domino email server.

That kind of sucks - you can't play much on the dev box because heaven help you 
if email gets screwed up!  That ought to get fixed, soon if you want to start 
doing web-based development.

>> Our iSeries apps are a mix of old Sys/38 code, some RPG/400 and a lot of
>> newly developed & deployed ILE RPG using embedded SQL with bound modules,
>> prototyped procedures, subprocedures and so forth (with activation groups of
>> *CALLER). To my knowledge, webfacing is not a practical solution at this
>> point due to the nature of our heavily influenced ILE applications, which
>> will most likely be the majority of applications to be accessed.

It is hard for me to imagine that the adjustments necessary to make webfacing 
work will require more effort than re-engineering the application for the web.

>> My first step will be to utilize VPN to access our Novell Network thereby
>> providing the link to two iSeries systems. My first goal is to establish the
>> VPN connections and ensure that they are stable and totally secure to both
>> the iSeries.

For "standalone" remotes we use a Cisco VPN concentrator. We have had a great 
deal of trouble making the Novell client function properly with the Cisco VPN 
software.

For several remote locations we have Cisco PIX to Cisco PIX VPN's and they are 
bullet-proof.  Be aware that the IPX doesn't route at all, and the encapsulated 
IPX is troublesome.  The remote locations functioned better when we got rid of 
IPX entirely.

>> The next step will be to provide secured telnet 5250 access to both systems
>> to the developers. Once this is established, stable, and secure, we will
>> then determine which apps to web-enable and choose the method to achieve
>> web-enablement based on the underlying nature of the chosen app(s).

I am not sure this is necessary if secure VPNs are already in use.  If they 
are, there have beena number of discussions on this topic on this list and also 
on the linux5250 list also hosted on midrange.com. 
--> http://archive.midrange.com/index.shtml

>> I'm not sure what Websphere has to offer in terms of support for this
>> project, only because I have limited resources ($$$ and bodies), and also
>> little time to devote to Websphere & Java type training. For the most part,
>> this is being done as "proof of concept" for upper management. Most likely I
>> will be doing most of the work here too.

All the more reason to consider webfacing (which is a component of Webshpere).  
Existing skills can be leveraged.  What could very well happen is that a 
"crude" version is produced using the webfacing tools, and then gets improved 
as HTML and java skills improve.

Good luck!

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