John McFadden <CCSJLM@UWOCC1.UWO.CA> (02/05/90)
The University of Western Ontario is currently having a difficult time coming
to a landing on the role of TCP/IP vs the role of SNA in our Administrative
environment. As a result I have been asked to send out the following
questionnaire to determine how other universities perceive the situation.
Please answer any or all questions or just send me your general comments
regarding the basic questions - What role does TCP/IP have for administrative
users and what is then the role of SNA? Thanks in advance.
UNIVERSITY SURVEY
a. Do you have a document on campus communication strategies?
Are you willing to share it?
b. How are the following connected to your admin and academic mainframes?
Terminals?
Micros?
LANS?
Backbones?
Departmental systems?
Other mainframes?
Off campus connections?
c. What is a rough breakdown of the items in question two. (ie. For micros,
what percent is PC, APPLES, SUNS, other)
d. What hardware does your admin computing?
e. What operating systems do you admin computing?
f. Do you have a single campus backbone for both academic and admin users?
If not, list reasons. Otherwise answer the following subquestions?
What protocols are supported on the backbone?
What administrative mainframe services are offered via the backbone? (ie.
virtual terminal, file transfer, NFS, remote procedure calls)
Do you plan to develop or purchase administrative applications to take
advantage of TCP/IP functions?
Do you charge for backbone connection and/or services?
Do you provide a front end menu for users coming in via the backbone?
How is the backbone controlled and managed. (ie. configuration, problem
determination, capacity planning, etc)?
How do you provide security for backbone connections?
(ie. accept risk, data encryption, point in time passwords, network block)
Is your security based on userid and password? Does physical location have
a role?
Do you monitor what is connected to your backbone for security exposures?
Do you audit access via the backbone? Are exceptions predefined such that
they can be detected and acted upon?
g. Do you plan to replace SNA with TCP/IP or do you see it as a parallel
platform? (ie. on Admin systems)
h. How important is SNA to your administrtive systems. Will LU6.2 be a
future concern?
i. Do you run office automation on administrative mainframes? If so why? If
not then why not?
j. Do you have a administrative TCP/IP mainframe connection or plan for one in
the near future? If so what functions do you intend to support?
k. Do you have any plans for OSI? Is it likely to replace SNA?
l. Have you established any strategies or guidelines for administrative lans?
If so are you prepared to share them?
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HAVE A GOOD DAY!
Yours sincerely University of Western Ontario
Computer and Communication Services
Administrative Technical Support Manager
John L. McFadden Room 16, Stevenson Lawson Building
Richmond Street North
London, Ontario
Canada, N6A 5B8
Phone (519-661-2024)
Bitnet (CCSJLM@UWOCC1.UWO.CA)John Gruber <gruber@ANDY.BGSU.EDU> (02/06/90)
UNIVERSITY SURVEY a. Do you have a document on campus communication strategies? Are you willing to share it? Yes; Yes, just send me e-mail (with your postal address, or I can send you a postscript file printable on a LaserWriter. b. How are the following connected to your admin and academic mainframes? Admin. Acad. Terminals? Coax star-wired Line drivers star-wired and LANS Micros? Same Same LANS? None conn. Pronet-10 backbone Backbones? Pronet-10 connects to all mainframes except major admin. mainframe Other mainframes are shared use. Departmental systems? Backbone&line drivers Backbone Other mainframes? None None Off campus connections? Backbone c. What is a rough breakdown of the items in question two. (ie. For micros, what percent is PC, APPLES, SUNS, other) 45% 55% .1% .01% d. What hardware does your admin computing? IBM 4381P94, mostly. Administrators can use other mainframes too. CICS and administrative batch run on the 4381. e. What operating systems do you admin computing? MVS/SP going to ESA f. Do you have a single campus backbone for both academic and admin users? Yes. Considering adding last mainframe (4381. Administrative users can generallyuse other systems too. Academic users can use 4381. We are linking e-mail on 4381 CICS to our other e-mail systems and to the Internet and Bitnet). If not, list reasons. Otherwise answer the following subquestions? What protocols are supported on the backbone? TCP/IP What administrative mainframe services are offered via the backbone? (ie. virtual terminal, file transfer, NFS, remote procedure calls) TCP/IP suite--Telnet ftp smtp nfs finger whois talk, etc. Do you plan to develop or purchase administrative applications to take advantage of TCP/IP functions? Not at this time. Do you charge for backbone connection and/or services? No. Do you provide a front end menu for users coming in via the backbone? No. How is the backbone controlled and managed. (ie. configuration, problem determination, capacity planning, etc)? Centrally, by UCS (us). How do you provide security for backbone connections? (ie. accept risk, data encryption, point in time passwords, network block) No special provisions used. Suggest that you use different physical networks for different uses and consider using separate network numbers to allow you to use network filtering of more sensitive networks on selective routers. Password protect logins on all hosts and ftp's, here. Other risks are simply accepted. We advise clients on password selection and other precautions. Is your security based on userid and password? Does physical location have a role? Physical location no longer used as security descriminator, generally. Do you monitor what is connected to your backbone for security exposures? No. Backbone is still rather small. Do you audit access via the backbone? Are exceptions predefined such that they can be detected and acted upon? No. g. Do you plan to replace SNA with TCP/IP or do you see it as a parallel platform? (ie. on Admin systems) We don't use SNA except in special case between, for example, channel attached 3174 and mainframe. No SNA crosses serial lines or LANS. We treat Decnet the same way. TCP/IP is our standard. h. How important is SNA to your administrtive systems. Will LU6.2 be a future concern? Not important. If we have to use LU 6.2 sometime in the future we will consider it. i. Do you run office automation on administrative mainframes? If so why? If not then why not? Putting up office automation system (excluding word processing) on our CICS system. j. Do you have a administrative TCP/IP mainframe connection or plan for one in the near future? If so what functions do you intend to support? We might add 4381 to our backbone in the future. It is currently connected to other machines with a RSCS type connection. k. Do you have any plans for OSI? Is it likely to replace SNA? It's likely eventually to replace TCP/IP. SNA is relatively unimportant to us. l. Have you established any strategies or guidelines for administrative lans? If so are you prepared to share them? We want to be able to connect them to our backbone. Some office don't care about this and are free to do their own thing. My phone number is (419) 372-2911. Good luck. Let me know if you want me to send you a copy of our network plan.