Abstract

Ongoing support for SNA clients in a large enterprise network can be expensive. Annual support costs in hundreds of thousands of dollars are not uncommon. To address this problem, NetSoft developed innovative techniques to reduce support costs while simultaneously improving the level of service to SNA users. NetSoft accomplishes this by leveraging existing LAN infrastructure resources.

In order to quantify the benefits of this approach, NetSoft commissioned The Tolly Group to conduct an extensive hands-on evaluation of its emulator product suite, NS/Portfolio. The Tolly Group built a prototype network and profiled key features and functions of the product. This document summarizes and details the results of that evaluation.

The evaluation was designed around Windows 32-bit clients running 3270 and 5250 emulation software. NetSoft distributes client software as NS/Portfolio Enterprise, version 2.11. The management component, also included with the product suite, is NS/Portfolio Manager 2.11.