SNA Fundamentals

Audience

This course will benefit all personnel within Operations, System Programming, and Networking departments. Programmers, analysts, network designers, and managers will also benefit.

Prerequisites

No previous SNA knowledge or experience is required although some familiarity with basic networking would be an advantage.

Duration

3 days. Hands on.

Course Objectives

This course introduces students to the concepts, terminology, and operation of an SNA network. Emphasis is placed upon, but is not limited to, VTAM and NCP implementations of SNA. Both traditional subarea SNA, APPN, and APPC are explained in detail. This course is an essential requirement for all personnel working in or with an SNA network.
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

• Develop an extensive SNA vocabulary
• Identify the major SNA components and their role within the architecture
• Identify and use the various address structures used in SNA
• Describe the purpose and data flow characteristics of each session type
• Understand how chaining, bracketing, and pacing operate
• Identify the major SNA commands and command flows eges, perform both cold and online backups and fully recover a damaged database.

Course Content

INTRODUCTION
What is SNA?
Pre-SNA Networking
SNA Hardware and Software
Nodes and Datalinks
SNA Layers
Bibliography

NETWORK ACCESSIBLE UNITS
SNA NAUs
SSCP Functions
CMC and data Hosts
PU Types and function
LU functions
NAU data flow
Address awareness
Network addresses
Sample network addresses
Network addresses message format
Local address message format

SNA SESSIONS
Sessions and half-sessions
Half session layers
Session types
Session setup flows
Initiation sequences
Logon request processing
LU-LU session types

SNA MESSAGE STRUCTURES
Message terminology
SNA message format and flow
RU categories
BIU structures
Request header format
Response header format
Transmission header formats
Additional TH fields
FID conversion

PATH CONTROL
The NAU layers
Session profiles
Session level pacing
Session level pacing example
Adaptive session level pacing
Request chaining
Bracketing
Send/Receive modes
Function management headers
BIND command format

SNA NETWORK INTERCONNECTION
SNA addressing limitations
SNI concepts
Gateway NCP functions
Address translation
Gateway SSCP functions
Alias name translation
Cross network logon sequence

ADVANCED PROGRAM TO PROGRAM COMMUNICATION
Systems Application Architecture
APPC and SAA
LU6.2 sessions
Conversations and sessions
Required information for a conversation
Mapped and basic conversations
APPC verbs
Verb examples
Generalized data stream
GDS variables
Typical APPC example

ADVANCED PEER TO PEER NETWORKING
Subarea SNA limitations
APPN differences
Distributed database
Route calculation
APPN routing
APPN message format
High performance routing
HPR principles
HPR path switching
HPR message format

DATA LINK CONTROL (OPTIONAL TOPIC, TAUGHT ONLY ON REQUEST)
DLC functions
SDLC structure
SDLC frame format
SDLC addressing
SDLC control field formats
SNA in SDLC frames
Token Ring structure
Logical Link Control
Token Ring frame format
Token Ring addressing
Token Ring control
SNA in Token Ring frames
X.25 structure
X.25 packet format
X.25 addressing
X.25 packet control (QLLC)
SNA in X.25 packets
Frame Relay structure
Frame Relay frame format
Frame Relay addressing
Frame Relay control (RFC1490)
SNA in Frame Relay frames
ATM structure
ATM cell format
ATM addressing
ATM control (RFC1483)
ATM Adaption Layer
SNA in ATM cells