by Robert Sample » Fri Dec 18, 2015 8:58 am
If you consider the purpose to be transferring data between systems, then yes they serve the same purpose -- as does $INDFILE, screen scraping, and LU6.2 (APPC). The differences can become significant -- for example, if you needed a solution that was pure SNA without TCP/IP, then FTP would not be a choice for data transfer. For the most part, the choice of which to use is site-dependent and task-dependent: a site that does not have CONNECT: DIRECT (the more recent name for NDM) would have to commit money to be able to use the product whereas the site probably already can do FTP at no additional cost. If I need to transfer a screen or two of 80-byte records to a PC, I'll usually just copy the lines and paste them in Notepad or another PC tool; if I need to transfer a million lines of 80-byte records from my PC to a mainframe I'll probably use FTP (although NDM would be a choice if installed at the site).
If you consider the purpose to be transferring data between systems, then yes they serve the same purpose -- as does $INDFILE, screen scraping, and LU6.2 (APPC). The differences can become significant -- for example, if you needed a solution that was pure SNA without TCP/IP, then FTP would not be a choice for data transfer. For the most part, the choice of which to use is site-dependent and task-dependent: a site that does not have CONNECT: DIRECT (the more recent name for NDM) would have to commit money to be able to use the product whereas the site probably already can do FTP at no additional cost. If I need to transfer a screen or two of 80-byte records to a PC, I'll usually just copy the lines and paste them in Notepad or another PC tool; if I need to transfer a million lines of 80-byte records from my PC to a mainframe I'll probably use FTP (although NDM would be a choice if installed at the site).