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Empowering the Web-to-Host Revolution

by Mark Buczynski

Internet and e-Business technologies are quickly becoming the most explosive growth sector of information technology today. The advance of the World Wide Web and the global acceptance of the TCP/IP protocol have enabled endless possibilities for implementing e-Business solutions across the corporate enterprise. This has caused the role of the mainframe to abruptly shift from a number-crunching batch processor, to a world-class, nimble, powerful application server and data server. Along with this e-Business phenomenon comes the issue of just how to provide a seamless, user-transparent co-existence of SNA and TCP/IP network topologies to support corporate intranet and Internet users alike.

Barr Systems, Inc., experts in host connectivity and printing solutions, is responding to this challenge with its Barr Enterprise Communications Server (BECS), a fully configurable, Windows NT-based, customized turnkey solution for Web-to-host implementations. BECS includes all the necessary features for SNA and TCP/IP integration and Web-to-host in one complete package.

Barr has teamed with select software solutions providers to supply the most powerful and flexible options for implementing e-Business and host access strategies. BECS implements SNA gateway and Web server functionality provided by industry market leaders such as Microsoft with its SNA Server and Internet Information Server, and IBM with its eNetwork Communications Server for Windows NT and eNetwork Host On-Demand. With up to four ESCON channel connections using the reliable BARR/CHANNEL with ESCON adapter, BECS is the fastest link to the mainframe, supplying unmatched throughput and lightning-quick response times. With many network connectivity options, including Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Token Ring, ATM, and FDDI, BECS is sure to fit into any network topology.

The key to Barr Enterprise Communications Server is that its functionality is custom-built around organization-specific requirements. Barr's professional consultants work with an organization to determine its exact requirements and then deliver a server that has been software-loaded and thoroughly configured and tested. Finally, Barr ships the server ready for installation, or sends a support analyst to install it on-site. BECS was designed to truly be as close to a plug-and-play solution as possible and take the headache and guesswork out of Web-to-host implementations.

These considerations present significant networking, hardware and data transformation challenges for a print management solution that must support end-to-end report management.

For more information on Barr's Web-to-host connectivity and Barr Enterprise Communications Server, call 1-800-BARR-SYS or e-mail sales@barrsystems.com

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