High-performance communication, repackaged distributed applications and automated storage management products, aimed at greater interoperability between GCOS and Unix systems, have been announced by Groupe Bull. The company has added Lannet Ltd’s MultiMan network applications to its Integrated System Management system. The MainWay, Alliance Solutions and EpochBackup products are intended as follow-ups to its recently issued statement of direction for enterprise information processing which outlined three development projects in the areas of GCOS and open systems, that is Unix interoperability, enterprise networking and CMOS-based GCOS 8 processors. The development projects will cost Bull approximately $200m. MainWay products support multiple network protocols and use switched Ethernet to maximise throughput between Ethernet segments and Fibre Distributed Data Interface. Without specifying, Bull says the products support a large number of transactions per second on wide area network-dedicated modules and is Frame Relay- and 100Mbps Ethernet-ready. Bull says its Asynchronous Transfer Mode offering will be available next year. TCP/IP access to the company’s Open Systems Interconnection -compliant Distributed Systems Architecture is not yet available; an announcement will be made within a few weeks. In the first phase of MainWay development, Bull has presented six products: three models of MainWay host systems for multiple local and wide area network communications and FDDI processors for GCOS 7 and GCOS 8. MainWay 2010 supports up to 12 Ethernet ports, one wide area network processor, seven FDDI links and 70 transactions per second – communications exchanges, not TPC transactions; MainWay 2020 handles up to 10 Ethernet ports, four wide area network processors, seven FDDI links and 280tps; and MainWay 2040 supports up to 58 Ethernet ports, four wide area network processors, 13 FDDI links and 280tps. The MainWay products will be available in March, starting at about $20,000.

Hell of a lot easier

FCP 7 and FCP 8, the FDDI processors, start at $14,000, and FCP 7 is already operational at a customer site, Bull said. Secondly, Bull has repackaged and renamed its distributed client-server applications, which are based on components of Bull’s Distributed Computing Model. The newly-named Alliance Solutions, Bull says, cover four general areas – system management, remote printing, data access and transaction processing. Within each category, there are several different packages, either for number of users or size of machines. Client-server applications are usually a can of worms that require a certain amount of integration. This lets the customer play and be sure that it will work right away. It makes life a hell of a lot easier for the salesman, said Bull. For GCOS 7 users, Alliance Solutions are available for system management, remote printing capability, and data access. GCOS 8 users can get the print and data access packages, plus a transaction processing package designed to enable co-operation between TP8 and Tuxedo. All the packages start at under $14,000. Alliance Solutions is the first step in a development programme called Stella, which aims to provide easy interoperability between GCOS and Unix. The second stage of Stella – an FDDI link between GCOS and Escala Unix systems – will be ready next year. An even faster link technology isplanned for 1996, Bull said. Finally, the company has made EpochBackup, a client-server tool from EMC Corp, providing automated storage management for personal computer local networks, Unix servers and workstations, available for DPS 7000 users and can be used to share expensive automated tape libraries.