Senders

Within a site, SMS uses existing network connections, so no special operations are needed to for servers to communicate. However, in intersite communications, the link between sites is presumed to be slow and potentially unreliable. Therefore, SMS uses senders to communicate reliably among sites. Using existing network connectivity, senders manage the connections, ensure the integrity of transferred data, recover from errors, and close connections when they are no longer needed.

Senders do not provide physical connectivity to other sites. A sender is an SMS thread component that transmits instructions and data from one site to another by using existing connectivity. SMS always uses senders to transfer data among sites. When you set up a site, you must configure the senders that the site uses to communicate with other sites. SMS supports three types of senders:

• Standard Sender, which operates over LAN and WAN links.
• RAS senders, which operate over RAS connections.
• Courier Sender, which uses removable media such as compact discs or tapes, rather than network wiring and protocols, to support software distribution between sites. This sender provides communication between sites that have unreliable or non-existent network connections. You can also use Courier Sender to send large files when you do not want to overload your network.

If a sender requires another communications service to connect to other sites, you must install that service on a computer at the site. For example, to use the SNA RAS Sender, you must install RAS and Microsoft SNA Server on a Windows NT computer and then configure the SNA Server computer to use RAS over SNA.

Related Topics

Configuring Site Communications

About Senders

Addresses

Site Communications