In article <[log in to unmask]>, Mike E. Farrell
writes...
>
>We have recently upgraded our operating system to 5.0 very successfully
I
>might add. One of the reasons for doing so was so that we could start
using
>our PC's as Virtual Terminal connections to the 3000. We are planning on
>using the Thinlan Link (Coax) connection from the back of the 3000 and
>connecting it to a hub on our network. Originally we were going to
purchase a
>fiber card and install it into the 3000, but our CE told us we could
just use
>the ThinLan connection coming out of the back of the 3000. This was a
>pleasant surprise to me. While ThinLan doesn't aford the bandwidth of
fiber
>it is a cheaper alternative. And we really don't have any "fiber" type
>applications (ie video or voice). What I want to know is who out there
has
>done this? How well does it work? What are the "gotcha's" to look out
for?
>How do you keep track of sessions since the sessions are virtual rather
than
>hardwired to a physical DTC port? These are just some of the questions
that
>have crossed my mind. Any comments or suggestion would be greatly
>appreciated. Thanks to all in advance (TIA)
>
>Mike Farrell
>Data Center Operations Manager
>Intermountain Gas Company
>Boise, Idaho
 
Mike:   what you want to do is actually dirt simple!  Depending upon the
number of VT sessions you want to support on your machine, coupled with
the impact of other TCP/IP traffic on the box (ftp, DTS(terminal), etc.),
you may want to consider adding a second ThinLan card to the box to
separate certain types of traffic.  We have two Spectrum machines (one on
5.0 and one on 4.0 until January) located 50 miles apart, both to which
the majority of session traffic is VT as opposed to RS232 terminal (DTS).
 While it's true that the session ports from these are not 'nailed' as in
a DTC-connected session, they still appear on :showjob, etc., commands
and may be managed just as are DTC sessions - :abortjob, :abortio, etc.
Our systems support hundreds of VT sessions daily - some users have four
or more sessions active from one PC to either or both machines.  The key,
in my view, to a successful VT implementation is to use a reputable
terminal emulator such as WRQ's Reflection (our choice) or Minisoft's
product - there may be others, but these are the most prominent.  We ran
into a problem where a small program we wrote to associate a user's
terminal to a local printer at logon time won't work with VT sessions,
but we got around that via an interrogative command file prompting the
user for his/her local printer name.
 
The most recent VT application implemented on our systems is an IBM
mainframe-based HP terminal emulator using inbound Telnet to start
sessions on the HP3000s.  This allows mainframe users at our corporate
headquarters who don't have PCs or HP terminals to access the systems and
run our major applications.  It works OK, but it's not my first choice,
nor is it without its quirks which the emulator vendor has yet to fix.
Approximately 50 concurrent sessions are on the production machine daily
via Telnet.
 
Good luck with your implementation!
 
Lee Gunter
HMO Oregon              Internet:  [log in to unmask]
Salem, Oregon                 or:  [log in to unmask]      (private)