SNA Planning Statement, January 2008

Resolving The Problem

Future releases planning information provides insight into IBM's current plans, directions, and intent, and is subject to change or withdrawal without notice. Any reliance on this planning information is at the relying party's sole risk and will not create liability or obligation for IBM.

If you are skipping a release, check requirements for the release you are skipping and the release you plan to upgrade to, and ensure all requirements are met.

SNA Planning Statement, January 2008
The i5/OS operating system has long-term support and development plans for many key industry WAN and LAN protocols. These include Async, Bisync, SDLC, Ethernet, and other link level protocols. These link level protocols provide the underlying support for higher-level communications protocols, such as SNA and TCP/IP. Some of these link level protocols, such as Token Ring and SDLC, have low-level native enablement specifically required for SNA. i5/OS has both short-term and mid-term LAN/WAN support plans for SDLC, X.25, Frame Relay, and LAN adapters supporting native SNA traffic. IBM plans to continue providing i5/OS LAN/WAN support for SDLC, X.25, Frame Relay, and LAN adapters supporting native SNA traffic in V5R3, V5R4, V6R1, and the following release. IBM recommends that customers start moving off these shorter term LAN/WAN protocols prior to IBM's eventual withdrawal of support.

The withdrawal of link level protocols with native SNA support is focused upon the sending of SNA traffic directly over LAN and WAN adapters. The various APPC based SNA applications including SNADS, DDM, Display Station passthrough, and other user supplied applications will continue to be supported using the Enterprise Extender support. Enterprise Extender was first available with i5/OS V5R4 and is the strategic solution for supporting SNA over those link level protocols which do not have native SNA enablement. AnyNet support is also available in V5R3 through V6R1, however, IBM plans to withdraw support of AnyNet in the release following V6R1; customers currently using AnyNet should start to move to Enterprise Extender in preparation for this. Both AnyNet and Enterprise Extender allow this SNA traffic to be encapsulated and sent over an IP network. In addition, Enterprise Extender also supports dependent LU traffic when communicating with mainframe systems. This includes host devices (3270 DE, RJE, and program-to-program), DSNX, DHCF, NRF print and display devices, and SNA upstream passthrough devices, when used in conjunction with Dependent LU Requester support. Enterprise Extender will also support the sending and receiving of Alerts using the SNA/Management Services Transport support.

For more information on Enterprise Extender configuration:
Configuring EE (Enterprise Extender) between Two IBM® System i™ Systems

Though i5/OS V5R4, V6R1, and the following release will continue to support SNA over SDLC, X.25 and Frame Relay protocols, new hardware WAN and LAN adapters announced starting in 2005 will not support these protocols. OEM protocol converters or earlier generation IBM WAN and LAN adapters configured under an IOP may have to be obtained by the customer if these WAN/LAN protocols are important to the customer. For example, you may not be able to continue to purchase new WAN and LAN adapters from IBM that would allow you to attach 5250 remote controllers such as a 5294, 5394, or 5494 which use the SDLC or X.25 protocol.

IBM i Support of Selected System i and Power Models, September 2007 (updated June 2008, updated January 2009)
IBM plans for IBM i 6.1 (formerly i5/OS V6R1) to be the final release supported on iSeries models 800, 810, 825, 870, and 890. The release following i 6.1 is planned to be supported on System i POWER5 models 515, 520, 525, 550, 570, 595, on System i POWER6 model 570, POWER6 Power 520, 550, 560, 570, 595, and on BladeCenter JS12 and JS22.

OptiConnect support for IBM i logical partitions (March 2010)

OptiConnect is a priced, optional feature of the IBM i operating system that provides high-speed system-to-system or inter-partition communications for IBM i logical partitions.

There are two types of OptiConnect: HSL OptiConnect and Virtual OptiConnect.

POWER7 hardware does not support RIO/HSL adapters and, therefore, does not support HSL OptiConnect. It will only support Virtual OptiConnect, which provides high-speed inter-partition communication within a single system. The Virtual OptiConnect feature emulates external OptiConnect hardware by providing a virtual bus between logical partitions. There is no additional hardware required to support Virtual OptiConnect.

All other OptiConnect capabilities are supported and unchanged.

Future software releases