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                                                        The Florida SunFlash

  Sun Introduces Transport-Independent Remote Procedure Call Technology
   
SunFLASH Vol 27 #25					          March 1991 
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             Free Source Code Available Via Internet

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- March 27, 1991 -- Sun Microsystems today announced
at Connectathon '91 that system vendors and software developers can get
source code for Sun's new transport independent-remote procedure call
(TI-RPC) technology for free over the Internet.  The new TI-RPC is
compatible with the existing ONC(TM) RPC but permits applications to be
insulated from the underlying network transports.  This means that, for
example, applications written for TCP/IP networks will run unmodified
over OSI-based networks, thereby greatly easing the migration from
today's standards to emerging OSI standards.

TI-RPC is the first open transport-independent RPC technology available
today.  It was co-developed by Sun and AT&T and is the remote procedure
call technology included in UNIX(R) System V Release 4. Sun's
implementation of TI-RPC is transport independent because it is written
on top of AT&T's transport layer interface (TLI), which is functionally
similar to the X/Open(TM) transport interface (XTI).  These interfaces
allow applications to run across different network transports,
independent of the operating system.  Because ONC is currently
available for every major operating system, including DOS, VMS, MVS,
VM, OS/2 and MacOS, the broad availability of TI-RPC will encourage the
development of distributed applications.

Included with the TI-RPC code is an enhanced version of Sun's rpcgen, a
high-level compiler that is used by software developers to simplify the
writing of distributed applications.  It allows programmers to specify
the interface between the client and server portions of their
application, automatically generating the RPC routines needed to run
the application.

ONC is currently the most widely installed distributed computing
platform, with an installed base of more than 1.3 million nodes, "which
is partly because Sun has licensed ONC/NFS on reasonable terms and made
RPC source code freely available," said Bill Keating, Sun's director of
corporate technology marketing.  Vendors that support TI-RPC include
Netwise, with its RPC TOOL compiler, Novell and all UNIX SVR4
licensees.

The TI-RPC source code released today by Sun is identical to the RPC
code in SVR4, with the addition of an asynchronous call facility.  The
code can be compiled and run on any SVR4-based system with minimal
porting effort.  Vendors who want to port TI-RPC to any non-SVR4
platform should include either a TLI or XTI in their product.  Sun also
provides software that enables the TI-RPC code to run under SunOS(TM)
4.1, allowing companies to use Sun systems as a platform for
distributed application development.

Sun will grant licenses for TI-RPC source code without charge.  The
code can be downloaded from Internet archives at no cost or obtained
directly from Sun.                                             


Connectathon '91 is the world's largest demonstration of applied
networking among heterogeneous systems.  This year, 73 vendors are
testing a total of 112 implementations of ONC/NFS and the X Window
System.  The sponsors of Connectathon '91 include Network General,
Cabletron, cisco Systems and Sun Microsystems.

###

NFS is a registered trademark and SunOS and ONC are trademarks of Sun
Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of UNIX System
Laboratories, Inc.  X/Open is a trademark of X/Open Company, Ltd. All
other products mentioned herein are identified by the trademarks as
designated by the companies who market those products.  Inquiries
concerning such trademarks should be made directly to those companies.
 
PR contact:
Carol Sacks (415) 336-0521
 
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