Cisco Enables Web Access To Legacy SNA Applications; CiscoBlue Products Offer Secure Connectivity Between Data Center and Corporate Intranet

Business Wire, March 17, 1997

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 17, 1997--Cisco Systems today announced a technology roadmap and several products that allow large corporate customers to enable Web access to legacy applications on mainframe computers.

The new CiscoBlue Intranet Roadmap, outlines Cisco's plan for developing technology that provides secure, flexible and highly efficient connectivity between corporate intranets and data center applications for IBM's System Network Architecture (SNA). Cisco's intranet roadmap is based on customers' growing requirements for Internet and intranet applications.

"The goal of companies evaluating Internet-ready host access solutions is to enhance the dissemination and use of host-based information without sacrificing reliability, security and manageability," said Cindy Santisario Borovick, industry analyst from International Data Corporation. "Cisco's strategy provides corporations with a foundation to integrate the mainframe with the Internet."

The CiscoBlue Intranet Roadmap outlines the development of future products as well as enhancements to existing products in three major areas:

Security -- End-to-end encryption and network-based authentication, authorization and single policy for secure logon to access new and existing legacy applications on mainframe systems;

Scalability -- Enhanced network protocols which provide more efficient use of network endpoints and mainframe through offloading certain functions;

Fault Tolerance -- Load balancing and redundancy in the network and at the mainframe to provide resiliency to failures of a single component.

"Many of our SNA customers feared they would have to spend millions of dollars to port the functionality of SNA applications to intranet capable platforms," said Nick Francis, director of marketing for Cisco's InterWorks Business Unit. "With our new intranet roadmap, Cisco has a strategy that changes IBM internetworking. Now we can deliver applications to the desktop, rather than just delivering data."

New CiscoBlue Products to Market

Cisco is announcing several new products, WebAccess for S/390 and Cisco IOS(TM) software for S/390. WebAccess is a product family that includes OC://WebConnect and OpenVista.

OC://WebConnect is a software product that provides superior, secure connectivity from a Web browser to a mainframe through any Java capable browser. This software recently won both Interop's Best of Show product in April 1996 and Data Communications' Hot Product of the Year in January 1997.

OpenVista is an integrated visual development environment. It provides a new, web-style graphical user interface that is more visually appealing for the end user than the traditional "green on black screen" for intranet applications. WebAccess for S/390 is a result of an alliance between Cisco and OpenConnect Systems.

Cisco IOS software for S/390 provides TCP/IP applications to run in the data center with the same reliability and security of existing SNA applications. It includes features of Cisco IOS software together with TCP Assist, which moves functions out of the TCP/IP stack and on to the channel interface processor (CIP) card in a Cisco 7000 family router to reduce host mainframe cycles. Cisco jointly developed Cisco IOS software for S/390 with Interlink Computer Sciences.

Applications of CiscoBlue Intranet Roadmap

Corporations can use CiscoBlue intranet technologies to enable their mainframe to support Internet applications such as networked commerce and networked customer support. Additionally, with CiscoBlue intranet technologies, corporations can deploy existing legacy applications through the intranet, without any disruption to the application. Some typical intranet applications that improve employee productivity include on-line registration for medical benefits, job training and job posting.

The CiscoBlue Intranet Roadmap complements the CiscoBlue Convergence Roadmap, announced in 1996, that focused on converging SNA and LAN networks. When combined, the two roadmaps provide a vision for the future and a phased migration from the current enterprise network to the corporate intranet without major equipment changes.

New Network Management Solutions

Cisco also announced CiscoWorks Blue Internetwork Performance Monitor (IPM), which isolates performance problems, locates bottlenecks, diagnoses latency and performs trend analysis within an IBM internetwork. IPM provides proactive network management to increase operator productivity, ease problem determination, and increase network availability.

An updated release of CiscoWorks Blue Maps and SNA View are also now available. Maps and SNA View provide SNA and TCP/IP network management from a single console. The new release offers enhanced features such as a Web browser interface, Year 2000 compliance, usability enhancements and additional platform support.

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. News and information are available at http://www.cisco.com .