SNA Cryptography Support

SNA session-level encryption (SLE) enables secure data transfer between nodes running SNA applications. The request units (RUs) for all the SNA traffic across the selected session are encrypted. Software encryption/decryption is implemented with the Application Manager for Data Security (AMDSEC) utility. AMDSEC is a software implementation of the Common Cryptographic Architecture verbs used by SNA Session Level Encryption (SLE). A subset of these verbs are implemented and they are the ones required to allow data confidentiality.

Because this is a complete software implementation, it will be slower than the conventional hardware-based encryption. SNA SLE is only supported for Windows Server 2008 and Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 platforms. Some of the supported environments are as follows:

3270 emulation
APPC/CPI-C client-server applications
APPC over TCP/IP

The key-encrypting keys can be added or accessed using the command-line utility amdsec.exe, which is available in the Personal Communications installation directory.