System information

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AS/400 IBM Network Station: Techniques for Deployment in a WAN
• Only one Flash card is required at each remote location in this case.
• Multiple Network Stations peer boot from the serving Network Station
without performance degradation.
3.4.3 Scenario Disadvantages
This scenario has the following disadvantages:
• There is no automated central management of the Flash Cards.
The system administrator must ensure that the Flash Cards are updated
when any new applicable releases and/or Network Station PTFs are
applied to the host system.
• The Flash card is a single point of failure for the remote user.
To improve availability, send a second identical Flash card to the remote
site.
• In the event of a Flash card failure, the NVRAM settings cannot be easily
changed from local peer boot to server boot.
To enable the IBM Network Station to peer boot from another Network
station containing a Flash card, the settings in NVRAM must be modified.
It may not be a simple task for the end user to change these settings back
(without assistance) in the event of a Flash card failure.
3.4.4 Network Configuration Scenario
This scenario is similar to the previous Flash Boot section. Once again ,we do
not care what type of WAN link that bridges the central business computers
with the remote office. This link is of any type, such as dial up serial or Frame
Relay, as long as it supports the TCP/IP communication protocol.
However, this link is deemed to be of minimum bandwidth or is perhaps close
to being congested and, therefore, unsuitable for larger file transfers. The
Flash-card-enabled IBM Network Station acts as a server to the other IBM
Network Stations located on the same LAN. The Flash-card-enabled IBM
Network Station serves the kernel and other base operating system code to
the peer Network Station, as well as the executable modules required to run
the different emulators.
The Flash-card-enabled Network Station suffers performance degradation
while it serves the kernel and base code to one or more peer Network
Stations. After the file transfer is complete, the Flash-card-enabled Network
Station continues to function as normal.