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IBM Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking

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Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking (APPN) is an extension to the Systems Network Architecture (SNA).

It includes features such as these:

  • distributed network control
  • dynamic exchange of network topology information to foster ease of connection, reconfiguration, and route selection
  • dynamic definition of network resources
  • automated resource registration and directory lookup.

APPN was meant to complement IBM's Systems Network Architecture, a legacy from the mainframe era. It was designed as a simplification, but it turned out to be utterly complex, in particular in migration situations. APPN was originally meant to be a "DECNET killer", but DEC actually died before APPN was completed. Today, of course, APPN has been largely superseded by TCP/IP (Internet).

Note that APPN has nothing to do with controversial peer-to-peer file sharing software such as KaZaa or Napster. The designation peer-to-peer in the case of APPN refers to its independence from a central point of control, similar to the way that a FireWire PC connection allows a video camera to talk directly to a disk drive on the FireWire network.

APPN evolved to include a more efficient data routing layer which was called High Performance Routing (HPR). HPR was made available across a range of enterprise corporation networking products in the late 1990s, but today is typically used only within IBM's z/OS environments as a replacement for legacy SNA networks. It seems to be still widely used within UDP tunnels, this technology is known as Enterprise Extender.

References

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