Pricing on the AS/400
I am a student doing a network design for a class and I was just wondering if you could e-mail me some general information, or specifications and pricing on the AS/400?
While I don't know the direction of your network design class, I can assure you that if you want to design a network and either include an AS/400 (iSeries) or surround the iSeries, you have the right machine. OS/400 is currently 128 Bit certified. It can concurrently run multiple operating systems (OS/400, WindowsNT, Unix Shell - through QSH, CICS), connect literally any computing device created in the last 10 years including mainframes, midrange systems, PC's (IBM and MAC), and Internal Fax subsystem, act as a print server, file server (for Mainframe systems (CICS), for Unix systems (DB2, Oracle, Sybase or any SCO or Linux compatible database), and PC's for documents and/or Universal DB2 or and RDBMS capable Database, and can be delivered with an integrated Windows NT server sharing disk resources. The operating system comes with a Web-server (Apache with AS/400 extensions) and can execute Java/JDBC connectivity and JSP scripting as well as AIX and REXX programming interfaces and fully supports the LDAP directives (without programmatic intervention - Windows/2000 intervenes in LDAP requests). In addition, you can order an AS/400 with OS/400 or Linux as the operating system.
Currently the iSeries can communicate using the following direct and virtual connection types: Asynchronous; Binary Synchronous (BSC); Distributed Data Interface (DDI); Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI); Ethernet; Fax; Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN); Data Link Control (IDLC); Frame Relay; Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP); synchronous data link control (SDLC); Network Interface (NWI); winaxial data link control (TDLC); Token-Ring; Wireless; X.25; and probably a few that I don't know. Once connected, the iSeries can communicate using the following protocols: TCP/IP; IPX/SPX; X.25; SNA; APPN; APPC; ASync; BiSync; TDLC; SDLC; ICF; FDP - Finance Defintion Protocol; SNPT; SNUF; and more that I don't know. Prices begin at about $12,500 for a small system and go into the millions. Current configurations and prices can be found at IBM. Good luck and let us know if you need more information.
