Digital Announces New DEC OSF/1 Offerings

Targets Leadership in Commercial Unix

MAYNARD, Mass. -- February 8, 1994 -- Digital Equipment Corporation today announced its intention to become the industry's premier provider of open client/server systems and services for the commercial UNIX environment.  Digital introduced scores of new and enhanced software and hardware products, as well as agreements with major vendors to release their products, including transaction processing, development, database, network, and productivity software, for the DEC OSF/1 operating system.

"Digital intends to be the leader in the commercial UNIX market, not just a player," said John O'Keefe, vice president, UNIX Products Group.  "DEC OSF/1 software is already the most widely compatible, most standards-compliant UNIX operating system available.  These products announced today along with those announced last fall give Digital the industry's most advanced products and services for the development, deployment, and maintenance of commercial, mission-critical UNIX applications."

New Capabilities for UNIX

Key components of the announcement target capabilities in transaction processing, database management, application development, network management, system security and availability, and migration of customer applications to UNIX-based, open client/server environments.

They include:

• Enhancement of Digital's client/server Transaction Processing (TP) offerings on the DEC OSF/1 operating system with the creation of a new, unified open client/server TP environment.  Individual agreements have been signed with IBM and Transarc Corp. to port the IBM CICS TP monitor and the Encina product family to the DEC OSF/1 operating system.  Digital's ACMSxp TP monitor, CICS, and the Encina Monitor will all run on common services comprised of the Encina Toolkit and the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE).  Digital is investigating porting this unified TP environment to the OpenVMS and Windows NT operating systems.  It complements the VIS/TP and Tuxedo TP monitors already in operation on DEC OSF/1.
• DEC Rdb, Digital's high-capacity, SQL-based relational database management system, now available on DEC OSF/1.  Suited for managing large databases in centralized or distributed client/server applications, DEC Rdb software joins database management software from leading vendors such as Oracle, Sybase, Informix, Progress, and Ingres running on the DEC OSF/1 platform.
• Release of Digital's Reliable Transaction Router (RTR) software for DEC OSF/1 to create a software fault-tolerant environment for commercial UNIX solutions.
• POLYCENTER Manager on NetView V2.1, a product of the Digital-IBM joint effort to port IBM's NetView/6000 network management solution to the DEC OSF/1 operating system.  Digital can now deliver a UNIX-TCP/IP-SNMP management solution based on industry accepted application programming and user interfaces. DEC OSF/1 is already attracting a large number of "NetView-ready" management applications.

An agreement between Digital and Forti Software, Inc., making Digital the first worldwide distributor of Forti's object-oriented products for application development and deployment in open client/ server environments.  Hardware-independent Forti software now supports the DEC OSF/1 operating system and other UNIX systems in heterogeneous configurations.

Enhanced system availability with the POLYCENTER Advanced File System and DECsafe Available Server Environment to enable rapid failover and recovery.

Remote data access with ACCESSWORKS and DEC DB Integrator to provide access to files and heterogeneous databases, regardless of network location.

DEC MLS+ (Multi-Level Security Plus), a highly secure version of the DEC OSF/1 operating system that extends the C2 level security features of DEC OSF/1 software to meet the stringent demands of business and government for protection of sensitive data.  DEC MLS+ is a security-enhanced UNIX operating system with trusted windowing, trusted MULTISIX networking for seamless integration with ULTRIX MLS+, and trusted NFS network file system.  DEC MLS+ meets customers' need for B1 security in a Compartmented Mode Workstation (CMW) which meets U.S. Government standards.

Rapid Application Growth

In addition, Digital reported that the number of applications ported to the DEC OSF/1 operating system has surpassed 2,500, growing from 100 in March 1993 when the DEC OSF/1 for Alpha AXP software was initially released, and from 1,500 in October 1993.

"The remarkable growth of available applications and the pace of porting far exceed those of Sun's experience with Solaris during the past two years," O'Keefe said. "We believe this is because DEC OSF/1 is winning recognition among users as the most 'open' of all UNIX implementations."

DEC OSF/1 V2.0 with System V Environment extensions, available to customers later this month, provides over 99 percent of the application programming interfaces (API) listed in the Common API Draft Specification (SPEC 1170) now in the X/Open review process. Digital is ahead of every other UNIX vendor in the range of APIs supported. Unlike HP-UX, for example, DEC OSF/1 is compliant with SVID3, the latest interface definition for System V Release 4 (SVR4), and with its 64-bit architecture, DEC OSF/1 can handle applications of any size, current or contemplated.

O'Keefe added that because of DEC OSF/1 software's conformity to System V, BSD, Open Software Foundation, and X/Open XPG3 and XPG4 standards, software developers regard it as a fast-growing opportunity for application migration and development.  Today's announcement of enabling software for OLTP, database management, software development and system availability for DEC OSF/1, he said, should spur development and porting activities to even higher levels.

"In addition to the standards already mentioned, Digital continues to support the Common Open Software Environment (COSE)process as a method for accelerating the definition and development of new industry standards," he said.  "We are participating fully in the COSE process through representation on management and marketing teams, and on all 10 working groups as technology provider or specification reviewer.

"We are committed to providing operating system and software products that comply fully with industry standards as they are accepted and implemented." said O'Keefe. "We have been and will continue to track specifications developed using the COSE process, and the latest release of the DEC OSF/1 operating system clearly demonstrates this commitment."

Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated worldwide information systems.  Digital's scalable Alpha AXP platforms, storage, networking, software and services, together with industry-focused solutions from business partners, help organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace.

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Note to Editors:  ACCESSWORKS, ACMS, DEC, Digital, the Digital logo, Alpha AXP, OpenVMS, POLYCENTER, Reliable Transaction Router, and ULTRIX are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation.

Encina and Transarc are registered trademarks of Transarc Corporation.

Forti is a registered trademark of Forti Software, Inc.

HP-UX is a registered trademark of Hewlett-Packard Company.

IBM, NetView, CICS, and CICS/6000 are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation.

INFORMIX is a registered trademark of Informix Software, Inc.

INGRES is a registered trademark of Ingres Corporation.

Note to Editors:  PROGRESS is a registered trademark of Progress Software, Inc.

ORACLE is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation.

OSF is a registered trademark of Open Software Foundation, Inc.

Solaris is a registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.

SYBASE is a registered trademark of Sybase, Inc.

Tuxedo is a registered trademark of Unix System Laboratories, Inc.

UNIX is a registered trademark of Unix System Laboratories, Inc. a wholly-owned subsidiary of Novell, Inc.

VIS/TP is a registered trademark of VISystems, Inc.