Progressive migration to TN3270 Plus

Hundreds of users at our company have been using two kinds of different terminal emulator software to access applications that are still running on OpenVMS mainframe servers. The users have encountered several problems with these terminal emulator products because of the compatibility issues with newer versions of Windows. Furthermore, one of these products lacked useful functionalities like copy & paste short cuts, capture screen to a file or a printer and more. To upgrade one of them to the latest version would be a very expensive solution given that some features of that product are not required by our users.

Letting the end-users lead - instead of driving them

It has become very important to upgrade to the one modern and reliable product that provides our users with the functionalities they need to complete their daily work, configurable, user friendly, and with a reasonable price setting without compromising stability and performance. Moreover, replacing the two existing terminal emulators with one reliable product will reduce training and support time.

I have investigated and evaluated different products from the top of the market down to the free ones. I was so pleased to come across TN3270 Plus; I have found what I have been looking for and more. It is configurable, reliable, user friendly and easy to deploy with a lock-down feature which means users cannot change settings.

To reduce the cost of upgrading hundred of users and without adding pressure on our IT support and helpdesk teams, we decided to follow the following strategy:

1. Deploying the new TN3270 Plus with every new PC or laptop installation.

2. The IT helpdesk will upgrade the user to TN3270 Plus, and provide a quick guide document only when the user encounters problems with the old products and seeks help from IT helpdesk.

In contrast to our initial thought that this upgrade process would take a very long time to complete, our records showed that the helpdesk team has around 300 new installations of TN3270 Plus within a few months. Furthermore the feedback from our users is encouraging and we expect to finish the whole upgrade process in less than a years time.

Moad Maghaydah
IT Systems Specialist