Unix International Inc last week published a Systems Management Requirement specification, which it intends to use to develop a complete distributed systems management framework to compete against the Open Software Foundation’s Distributed Management Environment specification. Unix International will claim to distinguish itself from the Foundation by basing its technology on a distributed, object-oriented methodology that it says will shield users from the procedure’s inner complexities. Yet at the same time, Unix International, for a second time, will effectively seek the Foundation’s blessing of its specification by submitting it to the alternative Unix club – although outside the Foundation’s Distributed Management Environment Request for Technology – in an attempt to harmonise their possibly divergent offerings. The Unix International specification was developed by its system management work group, which consists of 40-odd multinational vendors, independent software vendors, industry analysts and end users including Software Foundation founder Hewlett-Packard Co, which has reportedly been trying to peddle its OpenView/NewWave technology and its distributed object management framework stuff to Unix International members. Unix System Laboratories Inc is now supposedly to use the specification as a guideline to develop reference technology and appropriate application programming interfaces. The framework requirements call for a number of common Systems Management technologies to be developed over the next two years for use in heterogeneous sites. The specification, part of Unix International’s recently conceived Atlas programme, is meant to embrace both Unix and proprietary operating system environments and comply with the usual laundry list of standards. Armed with the Unix International framework, Unix Labs, which has to put it all together, is said to have been negotiating with Open Software Foundation Distributed Management Environment submitter, Texas start-up Tivoli Systems Inc for its object-oriented technology, which informed sources say provides three-quarters of what is needed. However in the current political climate, a single source may not be possible. In addition, companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co, Unisys Corp and NCR Corp have interesting technology and further technical evaluation will be done.
