RE: Leased Line vs. ??? -- MIDRANGE-L

Dan:
I see your post that your company has made a decision about this, but I
thought that I would weigh in my 2 cents.
You say you will install a LL.  Did you look at Frame Relay?  Generally FR
is cheaper than a private LL.  With a private LL you pay for a copper pair
from point to point.  With FR you pay for a "port" to the FR provider's
network.  The actual leased part of the circuit is only from your location
to the provider's POP (point of presence).  Same on the other side of the
connection.  Then there is a PVC (permanent virtual circuit) in the FR
network that connects the 2 ports.  Keep in mind since the PVC is virtual,
the data can travel over many different routes in the network, there is no
single pair of copper, so in theory data came be routed around a problem.
With regard to VPN, this is pretty simple to do.  We have a VPN server set
up on our network.  It is running MS VPN server under Win2K.  We have
unsecured Telnet to our AS400 over the internet, but can also start a second
dial up adapter on the client side that uses the MS VPN adapter as the
"connection device".  This creates the "tunneled" connection to our network
and then makes the client PC look like it is locally attached on our
network.  All services on our local net are available to the PC connection
via VPN.  You could use CA, but we choose not to.  Any telnet client works,
and we have used various LPD/LPR clients for printing.  For the price you
can not beat Mochasoft's TN5250 client and LPD/LPR client.  We also have a
few clients that are running CheckPoint-1's firewall, and we use
CheckPoint's VPN client to connect to their network over the Internet.
Again, it works well.  I actually prefer the MS VPN solution better.
Just my 2 cents.
cjg


Carl J. Galgano
EDI Consulting Services, Inc.
540 Powder Springs Street, Suite C19
Marietta, GA  30064
(770) 422-2995 - voice
(419) 730-8212 - fax
mailto:cgalgano@ediconsulting.com
http://www.ediconsulting.com
AS400 EDI, Networking, E-Commerce and Communications Consulting and
Implementation
http://www.icecreamovernight.com
Premium Ice Cream Brands shipped Overnight

"You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know" - rw

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Warren, Rick
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 3:51 PM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Leased Line vs. ???


Is the AS/400 in Reno ported to the internet?  If it is and if the printer
can be configured as a Windows printer you could pull the label information
down from the AS/400 and print it using MS Access or a custom program
installed on the PC (Workstation in Hawaii).  The workstation could use a
local ISP and either local dial-up or DSL/ Cable Modem connection to get on
the internet.

You didn't say how many labels per day you are printing.  If you are hitting
the AS/400 for customer information/ Item Information and you are printing a
lot of labels you may want to bring synchronized copies of the AS/400 tables
down to you workstation.  This would allow you to synchronize tables a
couple time a day and be able to print at will.


Rick Warren
Database Developer
Burlington Chemical Co. Inc.
(336) 584-0111 ext 492


-----Original Message-----
From: D.BALE@handleman.com [mailto:D.BALE@handleman.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 3:01 PM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Leased Line vs. ???


A situation came up where we need to stick an AS/400 "workstation" & printer
in Hawaii and "attach" it to an AS/400 in Reno, Nevada.  They're talking
about
getting a leased line to do this at a startup cost of $1000 and monthly fees
of $900.

Traffic volume is not expected to be significant; this workstation would be
used primarily to request a shipping label to be printed on the label
printer.
 The display will be a PC, not a dumb terminal.

What are some other options that could be considered at less cost?  Dial-up
is
absolutely out of the question.

I thought I had heard VPN (virtual private network) being used as a
lower-cost, reliable alternative to leased line, but my memory is fuzzy on
this.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.

Dan Bale
IT - AS/400
Handleman Company
248-362-4400  Ext. 4952
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator:
david@midrange.com
+---
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator:
david@midrange.com
+---

+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---