Migration Problems 1

[mmcgurty]

I've tried posting this to the 3Com group, but it seems as if I have the Black Plague and no one will answer. In any case, here we go:

At one location we have a 3Com Netbuilder II v.8.3 (LLC2, IP, IPX) that is connected to an IBM 3174 for SNA traffic. We want to remove this 3Com and migrate the IBM 3174 controller onto a Cisco 3640 router Ethernet port. We would more than likely need to change IP's on a lot of the equipment or better yet, plug the IBM 3174 into the Cisco 2924XL switch, VLAN a couple ports and plug the router into one of the unused ports. Once we are absolutely sure the 3640 is working, we plan on replacing it with a 2620 due to the fact the 3640 is too much maintenance wise, no hot spare for it, and its too much for what we route in that location.

My problem is, I cannot find any info on the configuration of the old 3Com Netbuilder II router. It looks as if someone threw all the books and documentation away after the administrator left the company. Now I need to do this by the end of the month for a disaster recovery plan which requires the new equipment or requires us to find the old 3Com crap and get it running. We'd save a ton by migrating it.

What I would like to see is the configuration of the 3Com router and see if I could move it to the 3640 rather easily. I can't imagine it does more than just basic IP, IPX, and LLC2 tunneling.

If anyone can provide some light on this, I would really appreciate it.

 

[wybnormal]

I hate to ask a simple question, but have you tried using a tool like Solarwinds to query the 3com's SNMP string? Even though the tool is really for Ciscos, I have found that with a bit of tweaking , it will talk to other boxes. You might be able to get the config or at least enough info to reconstruct what it's doing Of course, this all hings on the fact of the 3com having SNMP enabled.

I can tell you from experience that you might want to keep the 3640 if you are dealing with SNA. SNA needs to be bridged using DLSW (most times) and the bridging puts a higher load on the CPU then just plain ol' routing. I would again use a tool like Solarwinds to watch the CPU utilization. MRTG can do this also but I have found SW to be much faster to setup.

There is a Cisco book I would recommend for you and it's called "Bridging and IBM Network Solutions" by CIsco press. I found mine on eBay for 10 bucks. Half.com is also a good place to look for books.

MikeS
"Diplomacy; the art of saying 'nice doggie' till you can find a rock" Wynn Catlin

 

[mmcgurty]

Put a quote on my manager's desk last week for the Engineer's Edition of Solarwinds, hasn't replied back to me as to whether or not he's ordered it. I sure hope so, my evaluation copy just ran out Saturday. Really good software, but really overpriced IMHO. I watched the 3640 for days on end and it was one of the lowest as far as CPU utilization in the company, 30% utilization range.

Is it really worth 10 bucks to learn this old SNA/Mainframe routing/switching? I really didn't plan on staying here much longer. Are there places out there that still use this antiquated crap?

 

[wybnormal]

Oh yeah... there are many folks still using SNA as there are still many folks running the "Big Iron" and controllers. Besides, bridging is not just for SNA. TokenRing, Netbui,IPX, LAT can be and are bridged many times. So the learning of the basics behind DLSW is worth 10 bucks. What is your time worth when someone hands you a dead network connection and says "fix it".

Overpriced?? I beg to differ as would many others. SW offers much of the functionality of HP Openview ( minus the fancy front end and reports) at something less then a 10th of the cost. I use it daily to help troubleshoot and find various bottlenecks. Is it worth the 900 for the top edition? you bet.. even more so when it saved my budget from burning 10k on another router that we really didnt need in the end.

Your milage may vary

MikeS
"Diplomacy; the art of saying 'nice doggie' till you can find a rock" Wynn Catlin

 

[Cotton9]

If you can access the Netbuilder via telnet or the console port you should be able to bring up the configuration menu system then capture/print the configuration for each item you are interested in.

At the command prompt type: "menu" or "me" for short

There is a short cut to each menu sub item. For example to show all the IP settings:

sho -arp config
sho -bootpc config
sho -bridge config
sho -dhcp config
sho -filter config
sho -fr config
sho -fr alldlci
sho -ip config
sho -ipname config
sho -ipx config
sho -nrip config
sho -ospf config
sho -path config
sho -path dialcontrol config
sho -path dialmode config
sho -path localdialno config
sho -path spiddn1 config
sho -path spiddn2 config
sho -path stayaliveaction config
sho -path stayalivetimer config
sho -path switchtype config
sho -port config
sho -port bodiincrlimit config
sho -port bodthreshold config
sho -port dialconfig config
sho -port dialcontrol config
sho -port virtualport config
sho -ppp config
sho -rip config
sho -sap config
sho -snmp config
sho -stp config
sho -udphelp config
sho -sys config


sho -dlsw config

This should get you started good.

Hope it helps and not overkill.