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 Announcements SunFLASH Vol 53 #4 May 1993 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ICSW UUCPADM - GUI email/UUCP Setup ConServer-ESP ETHERNET/SCSI/PARALLEL SBUS BOARD CERAM unveils the first "Solid-State SPARC based Compute Server" DataTools Announces Jukebox Support For SQL-BackTrack For Sybase DataTools and Sybase (SQL-BackTrack SYBASE Backup) NCLOGIN ENHANCED TO FACILITATE DOWNSIZING EFFORTS PAX-2 RES - Automatically Exploit Unused network CPUs Rooms/X -- Virtual Desktop Manager TI-RPC's for Winsock and the New Microsoft TCP stack -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ICSW UUCPADM - GUI email/UUCP Setup Contact: Gary M. Gere Email: ggere@facere.factotum.com Org: ICSW (Intelligent Computer Solutions Worldwide), Inc. Address: 14433 North 73rd Street, Scottsdale, AZ 85260 USA Voice: (800) 486-7274 +1 (602) 998-8623 Fax: +1 (602) 991-1437 Email: uucpadm@icsw.Com ICSW ANNOUNCES UUCPADM(TM) FOR SUN SYSTEMS THE FIRST GUI-BASED E-MAIL AND COMMUNICATIONS CONFIGURATION AND MONITORING PACKAGE SCOTTSDALE, Arizona, April 12, 1993 -- Intelligent Computer Solutions Worldwide (ICSW) Inc. announced today the introduction of UUCPADM; the first comprehensive GUI-based package for configuring, testing and maintaining local and remote E-mail, asynchronous communications ports, modems, and the Uucp network data communications package. According to John Mainini, founder and president of ICSW, "UUCPADM greatly simplifies the arduous task of configuring a UNIX system to exchange E-mail and other data over dial-up connections. Currently, the average user is daunted by reading hundreds of pages of instructions and manually editing a multitude of interrelated cryptic files. With UUCPADM, a novice user can accomplish in minutes what a skilled system administrator or a $150 per hour consultant may take days to complete." The Uucp network data communications software, an optional package bundled with the Solaris operating environment, provides a widely supported method for point to point (dialup) data exchange. It is the foundation for E-mail between sites that do not share a common local area network such as ethernet or token ring. This vital link with the outside world has proven to be a nightmare to properly configure, maintain, and secure until now. "Ask anyone who has attempted to configure the sendmail utility," adds Mainini, "which is the intelligent and infinitely configurable E-mail transport portion of Solaris, how easy it was to understand, and you will get a long sigh and the hope that they never will have to do it again." UUCPADM is a powerful yet easy to use package that is useful to both novices and experts. While the beginning user may elect to use automatically determined intelligent defaults, the more sophisticated user is provided access to all aspects of the system configuration, such as specific register values in modem configurations. Context-sensitive help is available throughout the program to provide instant answers to any questions. AVAILABILITY: UUCPADM is available now. The list price is $995; however, ICSW is offering UUCPADM at the special introductory price of only $750. This offer is valid through 6/30/93. UUCPADM can be ordered directly from ICSW. FUTURE FEATURES: Additional modems, FAX, and third party serial communications device support will be available later this year as an inexpensive upgrade. REQUIREMENTS: Hardware: All Sun 4 /xxx SPARCstations/SPARCservers Operating System: Solaris 1.x (SunOS 4.1.x) Solaris 2.x available 93Q3 Windowing System: OpenWindows 3.0+ Disk Space: 4MB Modems: Telebit, Motorola / UDS, MultiTech, Practical Peripherals, and Hayes/Hayes compatible. Media: 3.5" floppy disks. Other media available on special request. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ConServer-ESP ETHERNET/SCSI/PARALLEL SBUS BOARD Contact: Ed Brodnicki Org: Antares Microsystems, Inc. Phone: +1 (408)370-SBUS 800-726-SBUS Address: 160B Albright Way Los Gatos, CA 95030 FAX: (408)370-7649 Email: sales@antares.com ANTARES ANNOUNCES ConServer-ESP ETHERNET/SCSI/PARALLEL SBUS BOARD LOS GATOS, CA, APRIL 13, 1993-- Antares Microsystems today announced the ConServer-ESP, a single SBus board carrying a buffered Ethernet controller, a Fast SCSI-2 host adapter, and a high-performance parallel port, packing more power onto an SBus board than ever before. ConServer-ESP installation is a snap in SPARCstation 10, 600MP series, SPARCclassic and SPARCstation LX systems, as it requires NO DRIVER INSTALLATION! Drivers are shipped by Sun in SunOS and Solaris. And it's priced at only $695, with quantity discounts available! FAST SCSI-2 HOST ADAPTER: Allows you to connect an additional seven SCSI devices to your system. The maximum data transfer rate of 10 megabytes per second eliminates bottlenecks that cause one disk to wait for another. 32-byte burst Direct Memory Access (DMA) and a 64-byte First-In, First-Out (FIFO) buffer minimize system load. A secondary ribbon-cable header on the board allows internal connections to SCSI peripherals in rack-mounted or custom installations. Active SCSI termination increases reliability and allows use with up to 20 feet of cable. A self-resetting fuse on the termination power recovers from cabling mistakes so your system can keep running. BUFFERED ETHERNET CONTROLLER: Converts your SBus computer into an Ethernet gateway, router, or bridge. When Ethernet traffic on your net becomes excessive, you can partition your network into sub-nets. Software included with the operating system routes packets as necessary between nets, increasing total network capacity. You can also isolate problems on one sub-net from problems on another sub-net, or build parallel networks for increased uptime. Once again, 32-byte burst DMA combined with a 64-byte Ethernet cache minimizes demands on the host system. A self-healing fuse supplies power to the external Ethernet transceiver, eliminating downtime from cabling mistakes. HIGH-PERFORMANCE PARALLEL PORT: Connects you to a wide range of Centronics- compatible peripherals such as printers and scanners. A data transfer rate of over 4 megabytes per second (200 times faster than an unassisted parallel port) is provided through use of 32-byte burst DMA combined with a 64-byte FIFO buffer and hardware timing control. Programmable handshaking protocol definition, pulse widths, data setup time, and transfer direction guarantee operation with the widest range of peripherals. All necessary software drivers are shipped by Sun with SunOS 4.1.3 and Solaris 2 on Sun's SPARCstation 10, SPARCclassic, SPARCstation LX, 600 MP series, and compatible versions of these machines. Your system will recognize and use the board as soon as you turn it on. Antares Microsystems, Inc. was founded in 1989 by a group that includes the co-designer of the SBus and the chief hardware designer of Sun's SPARCstation-1. The company was the first to market with SBus SCSI Host Adapters, Ethernet/SCSI and Ethernet/SCSI/Parallel combo boards. Antares sells the industry's most complete line of SBus products including SCSI, Ethernet, Parallel and Serial interfaces available singly or in combination. Antares stocks all products, and aims to ship orders the same day they are received. All products come with a one-year warranty and free telephone support. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: CERAM unveils the first "Solid-State SPARC based Compute Server" From: Scott.Currier@Ceram.COM (Scott Currier) Phone: (800)237-8600 COLORADO SPRINGS (April 20, 1993) -- CERAM, Inc., designer and manufacturer of innovative Data Storage Devices for the Open Computing Marketplace, today announced the availability of TurboPAS - The high speed, solid-state Personal Application Server. TurboPAS is CERAM's latest offering based their highly successful TurboCard Solid State Disk for Sun Workstations, Servers and Compatibles. The TurboPAS server is a low cost SPARC(R) based compute server that employs the use of RAM disk technology to make it 100% solid-state. By using the TurboCard RAM disk, TurboPAS servers provide zero-latency swap, and a high speed data cache to store and process applications locally. TurboPAS employs an NFS read cache to remove 95% to 99% of its NFS network traffic. When multiple jobs run on a single server or workstation, they must contend for system time and suffer from a resource bottleneck. TurboPAS servers allow users to process jobs on dedicated CPU's that provide true linear performance improvement (doubling the number of TurboPAS servers doubles total throughput). Since TurboPAS systems use the ram disk as a high speed swap device, they do not suffer from contention for shared resources like swap space and memory. TurboPAS servers are the best solution for many design environments. As an example, multiple TurboPAS systems would allow software developers to run different operating systems on each server, thus enabling them to perform parallel builds, and create a test environment for all operating system versions. (TurboPAS systems support both the Solaris 1 and Solaris 2 operating systems.) TurboPAS prices start at US$6,900 MSRP for a 16MB, 40MHz SPARC CPU with a 160MB TurboCard. SuperSPARC based TurboPAS servers are also available. CERAM's products are sold through a network of Direct Sales Offices in the United States and Europe, and by VARs and OEMs worldwide. Can CERAM products help you? CERAM provides a FREE performance analyzer which will: * Monitor your systems Memory, Swap, CPU and NFS packet use * Locate and determine the cause of performance bottlenecks * Evaluate if TurboCard can improve your system performance Receive "TurboTool" automatically via email by sending a request with your name, company and phone to: TurboTool@Ceram.COM TurboCard, TurboPAS, and TurboTool are trademarks of CERAM Incorporated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: DataTools Announces Jukebox Support For SQL-BackTrack For Sybase Contact: Bob Vander Woude Org: DataTools, Inc. Phone: (415) 324-2461 email: bobvw@datatools.com SQL-BackTrack Exabyte EXB10i(tm) Module Provides 50GB of Unattended Backup for Sybase Databases PALO ALTO, Calif., April 26, 1993 -- DataTools, Inc., a leading provider of database utilities, today announced that SQL-BackTrack for Sybase, the comprehensive, high performance object-level backup and recovery utility for Sybase databases, is now fully integrated with the EXB-10i Cartridge Handling Subsystem from Exabyte Corporation. The SQL- BackTrack Exabyte 10i Module provides Sybase database administrators with fully automated "lights out" backup and recovery capability, relieving them from the labor intensive and time consuming task of attending to database backup and recovery operations. With a capacity of 50 Gigabytes (ten 5GB 8mm tapes), the EXB- 10i provides the ability to perform weeks of unattended backup and recovery operations for Sybase databases. This capacity is maximized by SQL-BackTrack's incremental database backup support and schema-based data compression. "SQL-BackTrack for Sybase already supports the HP Optical Jukebox family, StorageTek/Lago DataWheel, the IGM ATL, and Exabyte EXB-10i and EXB-120 CHS via the SQL-BackTrack (Legato) NetWorker Module," said Jim Nisbet, President of DataTools, Inc. "But we've received many inquiries from major corporations using Sybase that wanted jukebox support for our stand-alone SQL-BackTrack for Sybase product." "Jukebox integration was a natural outgrowth of automating Sybase backup and recovery ," said Bob Vander Woude, Vice- President of Sales and Marketing. "Our Open Backup Stream Interface (OBSI) architecture, coupled with support for ANSI labeled tapes, laid the foundation for us to support the industry leading Exabyte family of jukeboxes. We will continue to support additional jukeboxes, stackers, and tape subsystems in the near future." The SQL-BackTrack Exabyte 10i Module tightly integrates SQL- BackTrack for Sybase backup and recovery software with the EXB-10i to fully automate media handling. The Exabyte 10i Module controls the robotic arm in the jukebox and tracks tapes by ANSI label and their specific location. SQL- BackTrack for Sybase tracks the versions and dates of the databases and objects stored on each tape. Automation of the daily backup routine is achieved via a control file which contains a list of servers, databases and objects to backup, along with the appropriate passwords to access the data. SQL-BackTrack then works in conjunction with the SQL-BackTrack Exabyte 10i Module to allow unattended backup to the Exabyte EXB-10i. The tape spanning capability of the Exabyte 10i Module allows the database system administrator to use the entire 50 GB capacity of the Exabyte EXB-10i as one contiguous tape. The largest Sybase databases can now be automatically backed up. Ease of database recovery is achieved through use of on-line history information which records the location and time of each daily database backup. The administrator simply requests the recovery of a particular database "as of" a point in time and SQL-BackTrack takes over. SQL-BackTrack notifies the Exabyte 10i Module which ANSI labeled tape to load in the Exabyte EXB-10i to perform the unattended recovery. The Exabyte 10i Module takes full advantage of the EXB-10i's intelligent robotics by directly accessing tapes rather than sequentially reading through each tape. Configuration, Price and Availability The SQL-BackTrack Exabyte 10i Module will be available in the second quarter of 1993 on Sun SPARC and IBM RS/6000 systems through authorized resellers. Pricing for the SQL-BackTrack Exabyte 10i Module is $1,195. About DataTools DataTools provides database utilities for relational and object oriented databases. The company's mission is to ease the burden on database administrators by providing easy-to- use automation tools to help manage today's databases with products designed for tomorrow's technologies. # # # SQL-BackTrack is a trademark of DataTools, Inc. EXB-10i is a registered trademark of Exabyte Corporation. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: DataTools and Sybase (SQL-BackTrack SYBASE Backup) From: dtools!woody@uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com Contact: Bob Vander Woude Org: DataTools, Inc. Phone: (415) 324-2461 email: bobvw@datatools.com Org: Sybase, Inc. Contact: Cynthia Fetty Phone: (510) 596-3500 DATATOOLS ANNOUNCES SQL-BACKTRACK TO SUPPORT SYBASE SQL SERVER 10 SQL-BackTrack(tm) will Extend SYBASE Backup Server with Automated Object-Level Backup and Recovery PALO ALTO, Calif., April 26, 1993 -- DataTools, Inc., today announced a marketing agreement with Sybase, Inc., that will enable customers to use SQL-BackTrack for SYBASE with SYBASE SQL Server 10, Sybase's foundation for their next generation of server products for building and deploying global, enterprise-wide business applications. DataTools is integrating the SYBASE SQL Server 10 and SYBASE Backup Server 10 products with SQL-BackTrack for SYBASE using the SYBASE Open Client(tm) application programming interface. Sybase is a leading vendor of client/server-based software products and services for enterprise applications. DataTools is a leading provider of database utilities. DataTools addresses the important administrative needs of customers running mission critical applications in distributed, client/server environments. "SYBASE SQL Server 10, and the SYBASE Backup Server(tm) 10 in particular, provide a strong foundation for enhancing and automating control functions in a client/server-based RDBMS environment," said Jim Nisbet, President of DataTools, Inc. "The SYBASE client/server architecture allows SQL-BackTrack for SYBASE to utilize the high performance provided by the SYBASE Backup Server, extending its functionality to provide automated object-level backup and recovery features." Stewart Schuster, Sybase vice president of marketing commented, "DataTools is a market leader in database backup and recovery for the RDBMS market, meeting the administrative needs of departments and corporate MIS groups wanting to implement a new class of applications that span the enterprise. We're excited to be working with DataTools to meet the backup and recovery needs of customers building and deploying enterprise-wide business applications." SQL-BackTrack and SYBASE SQL-BackTrack provides capabilities and performance previously unavailable to SYBASE database administrators. SQL-BackTrack is the first commercial SYBASE database backup utility to support both physical and logical format backups. Individual objects can be restored, even from physical format SYBASE backups, resulting in major time savings when only an individual table needs to be restored. Physical format backups provide the functionality needed for SYBASE recovery. For physical dump operations, SQL-BackTrack writes an object header followed by the data from a SYBASE "dump database" command. The object header allows SYBASE database administrators to reload a single table, group of tables, a view, or user-ids and other data from a physical dump. Logical format backups provide the ability to backup individual objects or groups of interdependent objects. The product supports logical operations by communicating with the SQL Server using the SYBASE Open Client interface, specifically, the SYBASE "fast mode" bcp interface, to load and unload data at high speed. Logical backups allow users to archive data, or to reload a database to a different version of the SYBASE SQL Server product or to a different hardware architecture. Automation of the daily SYBASE backup routine is achieved via a control file which contains a list of servers, databases and objects to back up, along with the appropriate passwords to access the data. SQL-BackTrack can then run in an unattended mode at any time predetermined by the SYBASE database system administrator. Database restoration is simplified, as the administrator can specify the most current version of the database to be restored or specify the recovery "as of" a particular date and time. SQL-BackTrack then specifies the correct media (tape, optical disk, or disk) to load and the utility automates the recovery process. Other key SYBASE backup and recovery features provided by SQL-BackTrack include incremental database backup, automation of the entire database backup and recovery process, ease of database recovery via on-line history files and ANSI labeled tapes, direct backup to tape or optical disk, and performance tailored for today's high-speed backup subsystems. SQL- BackTrack's features are not equaled by backup and recovery products in other RDBMS environments. Availability SQL-BackTrack for SYBASE will support SYBASE SQL Server 10 upon production availability of SYBASE SQL Server 10, which is scheduled for release by the end of 1993. SQL-BackTrack for SYBASE is sold through authorized resellers, systems integrators, international distributors and OEMs. DataTools, Inc. DataTools provides database utilities for relational and object-oriented databases. The company's mission is to ease the burden on database administrators by providing easy-to- use automation tools to help manage today's databases with products designed for tomorrow's technologies. DataTools is a Sybase Open Solution Partner and member of the Sybase Synergy Program. Sybase, Inc. Sybase, Inc. (NASDAQ: SYBS) develops and markets a leading family of client/server-based products and services for on- line, enterprise-wide applications. Sybase's integrated family of software includes servers, tools, connectivity, and administration/control products that provide complete desktop to mainframe solutions. Headquartered in Emeryville, CA, Sybase markets its products worldwide through its direct sales force, telesales, distributors, OEMs, VARs, and systems integrators. # # # SQL-BackTrack is a trademark of DataTools, Inc. SYBASE is a registered trademark of Sybase, Inc. SYBASE System 10, SYBASE SQL Server, SYBASE Open Server, and SYBASE Backup Server are trademarks of Sybase, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: NCLOGIN ENHANCED TO FACILITATE DOWNSIZING EFFORTS From: doc@tcg.com (Dan Cummings) Org: The Cummings Group, Inc. Phone: (800)624-4340 Address: 1008 Western Ave, Suite 307 Seattle, WA 98104 USA Email: info@tcg.com Seattle, WA. On April 15, 1993 The Cummings Group, Inc. announced an enhanced version of their NCLOGIN product specifically aimed at facilitating downsizing efforts. Dan Cummings, president of The Cummings Group, commented on the new product; "The downsizing process introduces a lot of unnecessary complexity into the work environment. We are modifying our products to try and mitigate some of that." The task of the system administrator is simplified because of the ease with which the network computing resources can be managed. The highest level of control is possible when rlogin and telnet are disabled and NCLOGIN is the only intra-system access allowed in the network. The administrator can subdivide the network into groups of systems according to whatever criteria make sense for the particular site. Access to these groups can then be easily controlled and accounted for by the system administrator. The task of the user is simplified by the automatic load balancing that NCLOGIN provides. The user is guaranteed that new sessions are initiated on the system most able to handle the new session. The user has nothing new to learn in order to take advantage of NCLOGIN. The MIS manager's job is simplified as well. NCLOGIN provides a mechanism whereby the MIS manager can track the level of utilization of the systems for which he or she is responsible. NCLOGIN also provides a mechanism for accounting for resource consumption in a straight forward and convenient fashion. This accounting is actually more complete than the underlying Unix accounting mechanism in that NCLOGIN allows session charges to be associated with a project as well as a user and group. We believe that the two biggest problems in a downsizing effort are transparency to the user and accountability for resource consumption. NCLOGIN has answers for both of these issues and, therefore, can help simplify your downsizing effort. To learn more about how NCLOGIN can help you manage your workstation network, call The Cummings Group, Inc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: PAX-2 RES - Automatically Exploit Unused network CPUs From: Franco Vitaliano <0005129988@mcimail.com> Org: VXM Technologies Address: 30 Gardner Road, Ste 3G, Brookline, MA 02146 USA Phone: +1 617 730 8490 Fax: +1 617 734 8760 In Japan, contact Satoshi Ezawa, Nissho Electronics +3 3 544 8455 (Tokyo) PAX-2 RES is the newest member of VXM Technologies' Soft Mainframe* family of software products. PAX-2 RES automatically finds idle network CPU cycles. It is a very effective network batch queuing system for running largely independent chunks of work. Neither operating systems nor applications have to be modified to run under RES. PAX-2 RES provides fairness semantics, so a single user cannot tie up all available resources by flooding it with job requests. PAX-2 RES uses a centralized server, with distributed load processing network clients. Users inject work to the system by either a user level program or by calls to a library. This work is first sent to the centralized scheduler that matches user requests with available resources and enforces fairness among requests from various users. When a request has been chosen for execution, the scheduler passes the request to a daemon process on the chosen system. The daemon creates the process and monitors its execution. Upon completion, results are returned to the user. One can easily scale the system to networks having many hundreds of nodes by adding multiple RES server domains. A parallel distributed make facility is also part of PAX-2 RES. PAX-2 RES is available for SPARC SunOs 4.1.x, IBM RS 6000 AIX, and SGI IRIX platforms, and a HP/UX port will be coming shortly. Like VXM's PAX-2 PVM product, all of the PAX-2 RES ports are fully network interoperable. In addition to a command line interface, PAX-2 RES also has a C library interface for applications. Two systems that share somewhat the same market space as PAX-2 are Netmake from Aggregate Computing; and NQS, which is supported by Cray, and IBM. Netmake is a parallel make facility, only. In contrast, the parallel make within PAX-2 RES is a layered application (it uses the very popular Gnu make utility.) That is, PAX-2 RES is a far more generalized solution for distributed computing, and can also be used for managing various types of distributed batch jobs, parallel processing work, etc. In addition, PAX-2 RES costs much less than Netmake. PAX-2 RES costs $6,900 for a fifty node license, and just $9,500 for one replicated server with an unlimited use client site license. NQS is an antiquated technology dating back to the early 1980's. NQS is not a very intelligent system. NQS will load up a queue on a busy machine, and just wait for it to become free, even though neighboring systems are idle. However, with PAX-2 RES, systems can dynamically enter and exit the network resource pool, with work automatically being shifted about - Note: this is not process migration facility. Lastly, neither Netmake nor NQS offer user fairness semantics, which means a single user can tie up all available systems. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Rooms/X -- Virtual Desktop Manager From: jkovacs@qualix.com (Jean Kovacs) XSoft (Xerox Software Divion) and Qualix Group are pleased to announce Rooms/X, a virtual desktop manager for Sun SPARCstations. Rooms/X lets you end workstation desktop clutter by setting up different rooms for applications and files appropriate to a particular project or task. In addition, Rooms/X supplies you with over 20 bitmap "wallpaper" patterns for various screen backgrounds. (Check out "bigcheapmoon.xbm" -- it's incredible!) FREE EVALUATION SOFTWARE: ======================== This product just has to be seen! So, Qualix is putting a FREE EVALUATION COPY on the mail server. This evaluation is good for 30-days. Here's what you do to get your evaluation copy of Rooms/X: 1. Send mail to qfacts@qualix.com 2. In the body of the message, include the following: BEGIN send rooms-sun.demo END 3. End the message with your name, company name, address, and phone/fax numbers. Rooms/X will be mailed to you within 24 hours. The product will consist of 25 mail messages, which will be automatically assembled by clicking on a shell script icon included in the READ FIRST e-mail message. FOR ADDITIONAL PRODUCT INFORMATION: ================================== Additional product information is available from the Qualix Mail Server. To receive this info file, do the following: 1. Send mail to qfacts@qualix.com 2. In the body of the message, include the following:` BEGIN send rooms-sun.info END 3. End the message with your name, company name, address, and phone/fax numbers. TO ORDER: ======== Copies of Rooms/X cost $40. To order your product, contact Qualix Group in one of the following ways: Phone: 1-800-245-UNIX 1-415-572-0200 Fax: 1-415-572-1300 E-mail: info@qualix.com We take MasterCard, VISA, or American Express. Also, all Qualix products are backed with a 30-day moneyback guarantee. If you're not completely satisfied, return the product within 30 days for a full refund! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: TI-RPC's for Winsock and the New Microsoft TCP stack From: dave@spry.com (Dave Pool) Org: SPRY, Incorporated Address: 316 Occidental Avenue South 2nd Floor Seattle, Washington 98104 USA Phone: (206) 447-0300 Fax: (206) 447 -9008 Email: sales@spry.com SPRY TI-RPC for Windows Sockets The SPRY TI-RPC (Transport Independant Remote Procedure Calls) for Windows Sockets provides a standard API for developing client and server applications that use remote procedure call technology. TI-RPC implements a standard RPC protocol, making it well-suited for distributed computing environments. The standard API and protocol supported by the TI-RPC for Windows Sockets is an implementation of the Sun Microsystems, Inc. Open Network Computing RPC/eXternal Data Representation (ONC RPC/XDR) specification. ONC RPC/XDR has received wide acceptance and is offered by a variety of vendors. Using SPRY's TI-RPC for Windows Sockets high-level API, you can develop applications that use TCP/UDP and invoke no transport functions directly. The lower levels of the API provide increasing degrees of control over transport-specific functions which you can program if required. TI-RPC for Windows Sockets will aid in the development of distributed applications. By using TI-RPC, a distributed application can take advantage of the following features: * Machine independence * Portable code * Heterogeneous environment INTERFACE The interface is for the most part, the same as on Unix machines. The differences are the following: a. You must initialize the library before using it. b. Some #include files have different names. c. No support for DES or Kerberos authentication. d. netdir is hardcoded to support UDP and TCP only. NETDIR/TLI The netdir, netconfig and netpath and tli routines are all made available to the client, in addition to the standard RPC routines. They are not a complete implementation of netdir, so use them at your own risk. IMPLEMENTATION ISSUES Because RPC contains state, steps were taken to insure that this state was always contained in the application rather than the DLL. The technique for doing this is to pass a state parameter to all stateful routines. For each stateful RPC routine, a macro is defined to call the stateless DLL routine with the parameters plus an added state parameter. This should be transparent to the caller, but will be noticable in any way in which a macro is incompatible with a function, such as in linking or passing the address of a function. You will notice that most of the routines in the DLL start with the prefix "sl", such as "slclnt_create". This means that clnt_create() was stateful. A stateless version (slcnt_create) is provided in the DLL, and a macro (clnt_create) is provided to pass the state to the stateless routine. CHANGES SINCE RELEASE 1 1. Calling conventions have been changed from C to PASCAL. Because of this change, you will have to recompile all code, MakeProcInstance() for any callback routines and insure that the callback routines are FAR PASCAL and exported. 2. The rpc_init() macro now takes an argument, which is the instance handle of the application (passed in WinMain() function). 3. A bug has been fixed with respect to timeouts. Timeouts were restricted to 32 seconds previously because they were stored in 16-bit quantities. Now, you may use very large timeouts since they are stored as 32-bit quantities. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ For information 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