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Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

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I am running an AS/400 (740 12-way V4R4) and I need to be able to call programs sitting on an NT box and retrieve parameters back, preferably using TCP/IP.

I know I can write sockets-based TCP/IP communication programs, but is there an easier wayto call an NT program directly from an AS/400?

If it were a simple matter of calling the program blindly, I could use FTP, but I need to call a program with both input and output parameters.

Anyone done this before? Send me full instructions and you get the full points. Point me in a direction that works and you get half points.

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Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

In reply to Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

Well this one will be worth at most half the points but unfortunately I do not know a more complete / satisfactory answer.
In our organisation, we decided to go two paths for this kind of situation (actually more from NT towards AS/400 but the other direction happens too):
a) Short-term: Message Oriented Middleware, in our case IBM MQSeries (even on NT). The call is put into a MQ message, received by a wrapper program on the ‘host’ (in your case NT), which does the execution and wraps the results back into another MQ message. This is called pseudo-synchronous usage of MOM and is supported by MQSeries but also by competitors like MSMQ together with Falcon.
b) Longer term: fully enabling Enterprise Java Beans technology for the AS/400 components _and_ the NT components. Platforms like IBM WebSphere are being put in place. Then, a bean on AS/400 can simply transparently call a bean on NT…

Hope this helps,

/ The Netherlands

Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

In reply to Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

MQ Series seems to be the answer. We were already looking at it, but the price keeps coming up. Java may or may not be in our future. Looks like we will be going with a direct sockets interface for now (Poor man’s MQ), with an upgrade to MQ hopeful in the future. Thank you for the feedback!

Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

In reply to Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

This is maybe another 50% answer. If anyone would know the answer or have the product:
http://www.attachmate.com/products. Rally! for AS/400 may be close…
They also have consulting services available-and may be one of their folks may know a solution.
Wish I could offer you a better answer, but I too am an NT–>Host type engineer.
G’Luck!

Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

In reply to Accessing Windows NT Programs from AS/40

Lots of companies like this have connections that allow NT to get to AS/400 data and programs, but no good solutions for AS/400 to NT. I appreciate the response, though, and will give you some points for your time. Thank you.

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