### Approaching the task of configuring communications

While APPC does not require 3270 emulator sessions at the workstation, it is assumed that you want to run 3270 emulators in parallel with APPC sessions.
This chapter describes configuration requirements for all three platforms.

Configuring APPC across computing platforms requires sharing information between platform administrators. After VisualAge COBOL has been installed, APPC configuration should begin with each administrator completing definitions required for his or her respective platform. For a specific platform, some configuration parameters originate from that platform, while other parameters are derived from a partner platform.

To simplify the configuration process and facilitate information sharing, each platform has a table of configuration variables that should be defined prior to configuration. These definitions can be used to generate worksheets allowing you to perform configuration on the respective platforms.