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RD&T support for VTAM Enterprise Extender

  • 1.  RD&T support for VTAM Enterprise Extender

    Posted Fri April 22, 2016 09:56 AM

    Hello !

    Is the use of VTAM Enterprise Extender working and supported in RD&T ?

     

    Bo Nilsson

    Hybrid Cloud

    IBM Sweden

    bonils


  • 2.  Re: RD&T support for VTAM Enterprise Extender

    Posted Thu April 28, 2016 07:09 PM

    Yes, Bo, the short answer is VTAM EE is supported. Since EE is really all software (not hardware dependent), the limitations that affect EE are solely based on other zPDT connectivity limitations. For example, if a customer is counting on Hipersockets as their mode of transport for EE, then that would not work because Hipersockets is not supported. But as long as the EE traverses a supported TCP/IP transport, then you can send SNA traffic over an EE TG, can define EE major nodes, etc., etc.

     

    Now the long answer. I should point out there are some VIPA considerations with EE. As you know, EE relies on VIPAs. Because VIPA is a z/OS Communications Server configuration definition, it is not directly tied to zPDT emulation, and therefore in concept is also generally supported. Routing daemons share the VIPA address as owned by a given host, and know the VIPA is reachable via the different network attachments to that host. In the case of static routing, the static route defines the route for the VIPA packet with a first hop of the network attachment. In either case, the VIPA packets arrive at the "correct" MAC address of the network attachment of the hosting Linux.

    But extra configuration can be required depending on how the network attachment handles the VIPA. The most common connectivity is emulated OSA QDIO devices to a LAN, where the z/OS system has its own IP address for the OSA. This is described as "Scenario 4" in chapter 7 entitled LANs in the zPDT Guide and Reference Redbook. These emulated devices properly handle VIPAs, with the VIPAs dynamically registered to the emulated QDIO device as they are with a real OSA-Express QDIO device. Packets destined to the VIPAs are correctly routed directly to the z/OS system. So this configuration should work with no other configuration. However, scenarios where Linux NAT translation is involved to route packets between the Linux and z/OS, or where QDIO devices are not used, require more invention. We have admittedly done little testing with VIPAs. But the common configuration of scenario 4 with OSA QDIO emulation should work for both VIPAs and EE.

     

     

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    RDTBebe