Consider a situation where a new software Application is being introduced into the processing environment. This new Application will only support TCP/IP; however, there are still many legacy devices (using SNA, X25, etc) in the network which will need to be supported.

At the top of the diagram below, you can see a legacy device which is still connected to the legacy Application.

In the middle of the diagram, you can see a legacy device which has been migrated to the new TCP/IP-based Application. ComNet is providing the legacy-to-TCP/IP protocol conversion.

At the bottom of the diagram you can see that as new TCP/IP devices are introduced, they can be directly connected to the new Application.

Eventually, all of the legacy devices could be upgraded to TCP/IP which would remove the requirement of the legacy platform altogether.

Note: ComNet can be licensed on a short term basis to accomplish such an objective. This is an example of why you should consider protocol conversion instead of protocol encapsulation as a protocol migration strategy.