sunflash-Distributed to mailing list sunflash@suntri sunflash-Send requests and problem reports to owner-sunflash@suntri.east.sun.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Florida SunFlash Third Party Product Announcements SunFLASH Vol 54 #8 June 1993 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary 54.08.A NetShare SDK: Distributed Computing Tools the NetShare Software Development Kit (NetShare SDK) is a set of application programming interfaces to the core NetShare services that automatically and intelligently find and use network-wide processing resources in parallel to achieve dramatic performance improvements. 54.08.B Pure Software's Quality Awareness Campaign Announcement Twenty-One Companies Form Partnership To Improve the Quality of Software Available to End-Users by using Pure Software's tools. 54.08.C New Performance Improvement Product From Pure Software Helps Developers Optimize Software Application Performance Quantify is built on the same Object Code Insertion (OCI) technology as Pure Software's Purify product. 54.08.D KnockKnock - Simple Network Management connectivity information, device status information, access to sys admin UNIX utilities, Point-and-click access to UNIX utilities, Visual status of remote and test machines, User definable menus for frequently performed functions, extensive help facilities - no formal training required 54.08.E News and mail via an 800 number with no per-minute charges Rabbit Network is introducing a service which will revolutionize USENET News and E-MAIL. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Details -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: NetShare SDK: Distributed Computing Tools Contact: Lisa Rivers Phone: (612) 546-5579 (800) 966-1666 Fax: (612) 546-9485 email: info@aggregate.com Aggregate Computing Introduces a Distributed Computing Breakthrough The NetShare Software Development Kit unveiled MINNEAPOLIS, MN (June 8, 1993) - Aggregate Computing, Inc., a leading provider of distributed processing tools and applications, today unveiled its second product, the NetShare Software Development Kit (NetShare SDK). The NetShare SDK addresses the need of applications to harness the processing resources available on networks. The key information systems imperative of the 90s is establishing efficient, easy to use networks of computers. Corporations are faced with the staggering task of molding large numbers of disparate machines into a maintainable, cost-effective cooperative computing resource that is powerful and easy to use. The NetShare SDK now makes this goal a reality for the next wave of client/server applications. Using the NetShare SDK, developers can easily migrate applications to client/server environments to achieve dramatic performance gains. The NetShare SDK is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) to the core NetShare services that automatically and intelligently find and use network-wide processing resources in parallel to achieve dramatic performance improvements. These dramatic performance improvements have already saved Aggregate Computing's customers millions of dollars. The NetShare SDK interfaces mask network complexities and operating system and machine differences in heterogeneous network environments. This means applications written with the NetShare SDK are easy to build, and highly portable. Aggregate Computing's first product, NetMake, a distributed, parallel compiling system, is a proven example of a new distributed processing application built using the NetShare SDK. Users of NetMake achieve up to 8 times performance improvements on each software compile. This gives NetMake customers a payback of 20 days or less. The NetShare SDK now makes it possible to bring the same power to other applications, from financial analysis and CAD tools to MRP -- using existing hardware already in place on networks. About the NetShare SDK The NetShare SDK provides APIs that give software developers the capability of developing their own distributed applications on top of the NetShare core technology. NetShare is a set of services that enables software developers to build distributed applications without being "network smart." The NetShare SDK provides automatic network intelligence with no user configuration. Integrating NetShare into an application eliminates the time-consuming task of encoding network configuration information into the application, so developers can take advantage of the intelligent resource selection offered. The NetShare SDK turns existing applications into "turbo charged" applications by allowing them to compute faster, more efficiently, and more reliably across the network. "Using NetShare to distribute the analytics across the network will literally save us tens of millions of dollars!" Vice President, Wall Street Firm The NetShare Architecture The NetShare technology services are comprised of two key subsystems, integrated and made accessible to applications by the NetShare SDK: Resource Management Subsystem and Task Management Subsystem. It also includes a graphical user interface. Resource Management The Resource Management Subsystem is a service designed specifically to maintain dynamic state information about network-wide resources and send that information back to the applications. Applications can request, filter, and order machines to process with a single simple resource query to this service. Each individual application can easily implement the system defaults or define its own policy for choosing resources throughout the network. Task Management The Task Management Subsystem is a location transparent remote execution facility. The Task Management Subsystem provides full UNIX process semantics for the remote processes it invokes as well as a task oriented interface. It is characterized by very high performance, a high degree of transparency and support for parallelism. The Task Management Subsystem allows applications to be broken into pieces, run in parallel throughout the network, and be controlled as if running on the local machine. It automatically uses the Resource Management Subsystem to select the best machine(s) for use. If there are any problems during remote processing, the NetShare services will automatically recover and restart tasks. Graphical User Interface The NetShare SDK has a graphical user interface (GUI) for installing and configuring the NetShare services. It provides a single central point of administration for all distributed applications. Availability The NetShare SDK is currently available to early-access users. If you would like more information on Aggregate Computing's NetShare SDK or other products, call 800-966-1666 or send e-mail to info@aggregate.com. The NetShare SDK will be commercially available in the fourth quarter of this year. About Aggregate Computing Aggregate Computing is a leader in the design and development of distributed computing technologies. Its products are designed to close the "technology gap" between distributed computing tools and distributed applications by providing network transparency. The company, founded in 1990, is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is privately held. ### Aggregate is a registered trademark and NetMake and NetShare are trademarks of Aggregate Computing, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Pure Software's Quality Awareness Campaign Announcement Contact: Naomi Pearce email: info@pure.com Phone: (408) 720-1600 Contact: Barbara G. Kay Marketing Communications Manager email: bkay@pure.com Org: Pure Software Address: 1309 S. Mary Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94087 Twenty-One Companies Form Partnership To Improve the Quality of Software Available to End-Users San Jose, CA, June 9, 1993 -- at Xhibition -- Pure Software(TM) and twenty-one leading software companies today kicked off Pure Software's Quality Awareness Campaign. The Quality Awareness Campaign brings together end-users who want to recognize and purchase high quality software with vendors that are committed to delivering the highest quality software. Charter members of the program include Oracle Corporation, Sybase, Informix Software, Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics, CAD Framework Initiative (CFI), Frame Technology, Island Graphics, Atria Software, Cadre Technologies, Interactive Development Environments (IDE), Information Builders, Integrated Computer Solutions (ICS), Neuron Data, Object Design, Rogue Wave Software, Bristol Technology, Petrovision, Renaissance Software, Resumix, and Systems Science. Members have agreed to display the Purify'd symbol to make it easy for buyers to recognize and select products that have been Purify'd -- the highest quality products. The companies will also sponsor a series of quality panels and seminars. Pure Software expects this list of members to grow quickly as more vendors and users act on the need to improve software quality. At the kick-off program today, Mike MacFarlane, vice president of corporate quality at Sybase, Linda Prowse, vice president of quality at Cadence Design Systems, and Bruce Brown, director of the multimedia SBU at Oracle Corporation, spoke about the importance of delivering high quality software using Pure's products. Bruce Brown of Oracle Corporation said that "the Quality Awareness Campaign will help us demonstrate to the marketplace that our products are of the highest quality. Buyers recognize Pure Software's products as a critical factor in improving software quality and understand that Oracle's use of them means Oracle's products are highly reliable. We joined the Quality Awareness Campaign because we are committed to quality and we want our customers to know this." "Quality is the competitive advantage for the '90's," contributed Linda Prowse of Cadence Design Systems. "Purify is one of the state-of-the-art tools helping Cadence achieve that Quality Advantage." "Ten years ago, applications were small and errors were easy to track down," commented Reed Hastings, president and CEO of Pure Software. "Now, the average application size has increased by an order of magnitude and companies are using more third-party software in an effort to control costs and quality. As this trend continues, the Quality Awareness Campaign will help buyers reduce some of the risk in buying software applications and components." Pure Software's products help developers create more reliable software Pure Software Inc. develops and sells software development tools that help companies create higher quality software -- improving functionality, reliability, and performance of their applications. The newly announced Quantify(TM) pinpoints performance bottlenecks and complements Pure Software's other products, Purify, an award-winning run-time error detection product, and PureLink(TM), an incremental linker. Pure Software's customers are software developers in corporations, government agencies, and educational institutions. Pure Software's products are currently available for SPARC workstations. Pure Software is funded by venture capitalists Merrill, Pickard, Anderson and Eyre, and Mayfield Fund. Pure Software is based in Sunnyvale, California. Purify is a registered trademark and PureLink, Quantify, Pure Software and the Pure Software logo are trademarks of Pure Software Inc. Other companies own numerous trademarks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: New Performance Improvement Product From Pure Software From: Naomi Pearce email: info@pure.com, or (408) 720-1600. Org: Pure Software Contact: Barbara G. Kay Marketing Communications Manager Address: 1309 S. Mary Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94087 Phone: 408-524-3094 Fax: 408-720-9200 Pure Software's Quantify simplifies the elimination of performance bottlenecks to quickly increase quality and speed San Jose, CA, June 9, 1993 -- at Xhibition -- Pure Software(TM) today announced Quantify(TM), a new software development product that gives software developers the ability to dramatically improve the performance of their applications. Quantify displays performance information in a simple, graphical way, so that C and C++ developers can quickly detect and remove performance bottlenecks and deliver higher quality applications. Quantify is built on the same Object Code Insertion (OCI) technology as Pure Software's award-winning product Purify. Quantify uses OCI to comprehensively analyze the entire application, including shared and third-party libraries. "To create and hold a competitive advantage in today's fast-moving market, software developers must please their customers on all aspects of the product, especially performance. Lotus 1-2-3 gained market dominance in large part because it was twice as fast as Visicalc and Multiplan. That's the sort of edge you get using Quantify," commented Reed Hastings, Pure Software's president and CEO. Quantify gives each developer the necessary insight for early correction Quantify gives development organizations the ability to continuously improve performance throughout the life of a project. As developers work, they use Quantify to identify and eliminate performance errors. These problems, such as inefficient algorithms and excessive calls to system functions, often slow down applications by an order of magnitude. Without Quantify, slow system response is the only indication that there is a problem. Quantify measures the performance of an entire application and its components and pinpoints the functions that use the most system resources. This information allows developers to quickly and effectively optimize the performance of the application. Because Quantify fits transparently into a developer's current environment, it can be used early and often by all developers. Problems can be detected and corrected before testing and shipment, when they become difficult and expensive to fix. The quality of the application improves greatly as these problems are eliminated. Larry Soule, senior research and development engineer at Synopsys, said, "After only 30 minutes, Quantify had shown me 2 or 3 pieces of code that I had never suspected to be performance culprits. Quantify told me exactly where I needed to make a change to improve my code's performance." Quantify offers developers a faster way to faster code Prior to Quantify, developers primarily relied on trial-and-error to find performance problems. Many have used public domain software like gprof or prof, but these profiling tools are difficult to use and overwhelm the user with hard-to-read and often inaccurate data. In contrast, Quantify uses unique graphics like the "River of Time" and reports listing the most compute-intensive functions to effectively summarize and present performance data. "Quantify makes performance improvement accessible to every developer. It lets developers eliminate performance problems the way they eliminate run-time errors with Purify," said Mark Box, vice president of marketing. "Until now, performance issues have typically been dealt with only at the most difficult times -- when there are major crises caused by user complaints about performance. Quantify makes it possible to prevent these crises." Quantify drops into place alongside other tools in a developer's environment, requiring no special compilers, editors, or debuggers. It is non-intrusive, needing only the addition of the word "quantify" to the makefile; there's no recompilation or addition of special libraries. This ease-of-use is a radical departure from the recompilation overhead associated with profilers. Pure Software's Object Code Insertion technology allows Quantify to monitor the entire executable at run-time, including third-party and shared libraries. This understanding is critical to achieving maximum performance of complex programs that rely on library software, such as the X11 libraries. Quantify will ship in July for developers using SPARC workstations running SunOS 4.1.x. It is priced at $1198 per individual for a simple license. Annual upgrades and support are an additional $250 per license. Pure Software's products help developers create more reliable software Quantify complements Pure Software's other products, Purify, an award-winning run-time error-detection product, and PureLink(TM), an incremental linker. Together, these products help development teams create higher quality software -- improving functionality, reliability, and performance of their applications. Pure Software's customers are software developers in corporations, government agencies, and educational institutions. Pure Software's products are currently available for SPARC workstations. Pure Software is funded by venture capitalists Merrill, Pickard, Anderson and Eyre, and Mayfield Fund. Pure Software is based in Sunnyvale, California. Purify is a registered trademark and PureLink, Quantify, Pure Software and the Pure Software logo are trademarks of Pure Software Inc. Other companies own numerous trademarks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: KnockKnock - Simple Network Management Tool From: bcoll@qualix.com (Barbara Coll) Org: Qualix Group phone: 1-800-245-UNIX 1-415-572-0200 fax: 1-415-572-1300 e-mail: info@qualix.com Address: 1900 S. Norfolk St., #224 San Mateo, CA 94403 _________________________________________________ | KnockKnock 1.0 | | - simple, inexpensive, | | network management tool | ------------------------------------------------- KnockKnock is a simple, easy to use, network management tool for system administrators managing heterogeneous IP networks; and for the general UNIX user who wants the power of UNIX utilities without being a UNIX expert. For the Network Manager/System Administrator: * Basic connectivity information * Real-time device status information * Convenient access to sys admin UNIX utilities * Quick installation and configuration * Low system/network overhead * self learning tool For the General User: * Point-and-click access to UNIX utilities * Visual status of remote and test machines * User definable menus for frequently performed functions * extensive help facilities - no formal training required ________________________________________________ | SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICE: $500/USER | ------------------------------------------------ If the machines you need to manage or connect to are BEYOND SCREAMING DISTANCE (you can't yell to your colleagues to figure out the status) they you should e-mail Qualix to get a FREE 30-DAY EVALUATION OF THE KNOCKKNOCK PRODUCT! HOW TO GET A FREE 30-DAY EVALUATION COPY ---------------------------------------- Use the Qualix Mail Server: send mail to qfacts@qualix.com and include the following message. BEGIN send knockknock.info send knockknock-sparc.demo END Please remember to include your name/company/address/phone number. Availability: ------------- KnockKnock for SPARC/OPEN LOOK - NOW KnockKnock for SPARC/MOTIF - end of July KnockKnock for Solaris 2.2 - Summer 93 KnockKnock for Solaris/Intel - Fall 93 Operating Requirements: ---------------------- SPARC workstations IP environment 8 MB RAM 500K Disc Space SunOS 4.1.x OpenWindows 3.0 Qualix Guarantees: ------------------ Qualix offers a 30-day money-back SATISFACTION GUARANTEED. If you're not completely satisfied, return the product within 30 days and we'll refund your money. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: News and mail via an 800 number with no per-minute charges Newsgroups: biz.comp.services,mi.news From: liason@ns.Rabbit.NET (Customer Liason Services) email: liason@rabbit.net phone: 313.790.0094 FAX: 313.790.0156 ANNOUNCING THE RABBIT NETWORK NEWSMAIL 800 SERVICE. E-MAIL AND NEWS AVAILABLE VIA AN 800 NUMBER WITH NO PER-MINUTE CHARGES !! ONLY $99/MONTH NEWS AND/OR MAIL - YOUR CHOICE VIA UUCP OR TCP/IP - YOUR CHOICE REMOTE NEWS READING FROM OUR SERVER OR A COMPLETE NEWS FEED - YOUR CHOICE NO PER-MINUTE CONNECT CHARGES NO LONG DISTANCE PHONE CHARGES (Service available from 8PM to 6AM EASTERN) The Rabbit Network is introducing a service which will revolutionize USENET News and E-MAIL. Until now, the only way to get a news/e-mail feed was to dial long distance, use a service which charged a per-minute fee for dial in access or obtain a TCP/IP dial-up account for $250-$300 per month (with no guarantee of a local access number). These methods are now obsolete. The Rabbit Network now provides news and e-mail service via an 800 (toll free) dial-up service. You may get news or e-mail feed or both. WE CHARGE NO PER-MINUTE FEE! You pay a flat monthly rate regardless of connect time or amount of information transferred. We offer UUCP connections or TCP/IP packet connections (PPP or SLIP). You receive all of the services provided with our USENET NEWS and E-MAIL SERVICE along with access to the 800 service. This service normally runs $149/month with a $150 setup fee, but we are offering the first 3 months for $99 a month and we are waiving the installation fee. THIS OFFER EXPIRES JUNE 30 1993. For more information, send e-mail to liason@rabbit.net. You may contact us by phone at 313.790.0094 or by FAX at 313.790.0156. There are some limitations: We cannot provide Domain Name Service for you on the greater Internet (We can give your site a host name under our .RABBIT.NET domain). A high speed modem is required (either V.32bis or TurboPEP). We do not provide packet access directly from our network to the Internet. And, of course, dial-in hours are limited to 8PM to 6AM Eastern time. (You may call our regular number for access during the day). ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information about SunFlash send mail to info-sunflash@Sun.COM. Subscription requests should be sent to sunflash-request@Sun.COM. Archives are on solar.nova.edu, ftp.uu.net, sunsite.unc.edu, src.doc.ic.ac.uk and ftp.adelaide.edu.au All prices, availability, and other statements relating to Sun or third party products are valid in the U.S. only. Please contact your local Sales Representative for details of pricing and product availability in your region. Descriptions of, or references to products or publications within SunFlash does not imply an endorsement of that product or publication by Sun Microsystems. Send brief articles (e.g. third party announcements) and include contact information (non-800#, fax #, email, etc) to: John McLaughlin, SunFlash editor, flash@Sun.COM. +1 305 351 4909