Abstract

WRQ, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to compare the 3270 emulator performance of WRQ’s Reflection for IBM version 6.10 with that of IBM Corp.’s Personal Communications AS/400 and 3270 version 4.11. The Tolly Group tested four areas of 3270 performance which represent common day-to- day functions of a 3270 user: File transfer, 3270 interactive, graphics, and HLLAPI. The Tolly Group conducted a series of performance benchmarks between a PC running the 3270 emulator software under test and an IBM SNA host across three different network transports: 802.2/DLC (native SNA), via Microsoft SNA Server over TCP/IP, and via Novell NetWare for SAA over IPX. Testing was performed in April-May of 1997. 

The test results show that WRQ’s Reflection for IBM delivers better performance than IBM’s Personal Communications in a variety of network environments. Specifically, WRQ delivers faster file transfers through both SNA Server and NetWare for SAA, as well as faster 3270 interactive performance, graphics performance and HLLAPI performance in all test configurations.