Power Tools 1993 October - Disc 2/Power Tools (Disc 2)(October 1993)(HP).iso/hotlines/cpethl/decosf.txt

Text File | 1992-08-06 | 6KB | 120 lines

DEC announced on January 22 that it will start shipping OSF/1 with a
select grouping of its DECstation and DECsystem workstations/servers
beginning March 1992, with a second release expected later this year.
Ironically, upon first release of DEC OSF/1 V1.0, none of the new
DECstations and DECsystems announced December 3rd will by supported.

The OSF Distriuted Computing Environment features stated by DEC for DEC
OSF/1 V1.0 include:

.  Remote Procedure Call (RPC) -- this is NCS with threads extensions
which was developed by HP/Apollo with the threads technology added by
DEC.  (Threads provides a parallel processing service).

.  Cell Directory Service (CDS) which provides a global naming service
for computer systems that store informations about objects in the
network.

.  Local Directory Service (LDS) as an alternative directory service
providing a simpler namespace implementation.

.  Distributed Time Service (DTS) which provides clock synchronization
for systems in local- and wide-area networks.

DEC states that its strategy for UNIX is OSF/1.  In considering the
3,000 applications that it has on ULTRIX, it is key that DEC gets the
software vendor support that it needs for DEC OSF/1.  Upon this
announcement, DEC claims support by over 90 software vendors focused on
CASE, language compilers, databases, and a core set of applications.
Digital promises a richer set of applications available when it ships
the second release of DEC OSF/1 later this year.

DEC claims that its diverging UNIX operating systems will all merge
into OSF/1, with the promise of easy migration paths.  At the present,
DEC has two other UNIX operating systems besides its newly announced
DEC OSF/1 which include:

.  ULTRIX is DEC's BSD-based implementation of the UNIX operating
system. It runs on VAX and RISC processors, from the smallest desktop
systems to the largest computers.  Digital will continue to ship,
maintain and update the ULTRIX operating system and associated layered
products (NAS) for those customers who prefer that operating system
environment.  Porting ULTRIX applications to DEC OSF/1 V.0 will require
recompiling the source code.  Porting executables is largely
discouraged because of some irreconcilable differences between ULTRIX
and DEC OSF/1.

.  VAX System V, DEC's System V product that it offers only to its
telecommunications customers in the English-speaking world.  Digital's
strategy is to move existing System V customers to the OSF/1 platform
and provide System V compatibility on top of the OSF/1 kernel.  At the
same time, DEC intends to upgrade VAX System V Release 3.1 to VAX
System V Release 3.1.  Although DEC provides an ULTRIX to DEC OSF/1
Migration Guide for programmers to port applications, a counterpart for
porting VAX System V was not provided at the time of DEC's
announcement.

In addition to the confusion of multiple UNIX operating systems, DEC is
also adding its future RISC platform, ALPHA, as a platform alternative
to their current MIPS-based ULTRIX systems.  Since the MIPS chip is
used in the Advanced Computing Environment (ACE) consortium specs that
DEC helped to create, it is sending a mixed message to users and
analysts. DEC has tried to position their strategy as providing OSF/1
across systems that are brought out in MIPS and ACE, and for very high
performance, it will offer Alpha.  But there are several skeptics, and
it is largely felt that DEC will abandon MIPS in favor of support of
their own Alpha technology cutting them free from chip dependence on
MIPSco.

There are several ULTRIX features not available in DEC OSF/1 which
include:

.  Support for Local Area Transport devices
.  Support for VAX hardware
.  Support for the DECsystem 5400, DECsystem 5500, and DECsystem 5800,
   DECsystem 5000 Model 25, DECsystem 5000 Model 240, DECsystem 5900,
   DECstation 5000 Model 133, and DECstation 5000 Model 240 hardware
.  Support for the DECstation 5000-series 2D and 3D graphics
   subsystems
.  Support for most non-Digital terminals or printers
.  N-buffered I/O services
.  Support for DECnet software
.  Diskless Management Services
.  The DECwindows debugger
.  Enhanced security
.  License Management Facility
.  Maintenance operations protocol (MOP)
.  PrintServer software
.  Remote Installation Services



Summary -------

.  DEC OSF/1 has been introduced.  HP is working on introducing OSF/1
for its workstations later this year and it is being tested at customer
developer sites today.

.  DEC OSF/1 has several holes.  One of them being that it is not
offered on its entire line of DECsystems and DECstations.  When HP
offers OSF/1 for its workstations, all RISC based workstations will be
supported.  DEC OSF/1 also has weaker security, remote system
management, and networking support when compared to HP's workstations,
and even DEC's own ULTRIX offering.

.  Application support for OSF/1 at this point in time is fairly weak.
It will be critical for DEC to get software vendor support for its DEC
OSF/1, and HP will be able to leverage off from this effort as many of
these OSF-based applications can be portable to our workstation
platforms as OSF/1 becomes available on them.

.  DEC's UNIX strategy is all over the place in regard to operating
systems and hardware support.  DEC currently is trying to support two
separate operating systems and two different hardware platforms in
regard to UNIX.  With these announcements, DEC is adding yet another
hardware platform alternative (ALPHA) and another choice of operating
system.  Integration of these operating systems is promised, yet it may
be a long time coming.  In regard to hardware options, ACE supporters
are confused and worried that DEC will abandon its MIPS based product
line in due time (within the next few years) in support of ALPHA.