09/07/95

On September 7th, 1995 the DCE Users Group of Michigan met at the University of Michigan's Center for Information Technology Integration (CITI). The meeting was sponsored by the Client/Server Exchange, a joint partnership of IBM and the University of Michigan, promoting open, client/server computing.

Hosting the meeting was Janani Janakiraman of U-M/CITI.

Attendees: Kizzmett Collers - Detroit Edison, Brad Smart -Northern Telecom, Diana Noble - U-M, Al Johnson - Chrysler,Steve Freeman - IBM, Mark Pettovello - Ford, Ben Hess -CITI, Duncan McRae - Ford, Bob Brandt - Ford, Dave Stacer -Ford, Derek Brink - Gradient, Paul Frisch - EDS, Lisa Wyatt- EDS, Brian Sullivan - EDS, Janani Janakiraman - CITI.

The agenda of the meeting was as follows:

• Choosing of a scribe:.
• Discussion of topics for future meetings.
• Presentations:
  • Gradient
  • Open Environment Corporation
• Open Discussion
• OSF Developers Conference
• DFS

The next meeting will be on Thursday, November 9, 1-4pm.

The proposed agenda is:

• MVS/DCE Experiences.
• Selling DCE internally.
• Perhaps one or 2 vendor updates, if we can get them to come.
• Other suggested topics:
  • Have individual members give updates of what their companies are doing with DCE.
  • CORBA and DCE.

Brad Smart - Northern Telecom, is taking the minutes for today's meeting.

Review of list of topics:

• MVS/DCE - Maybe, if we can ever get anyone here to present.
• Selling DCE internally
• International issues (DES encryption, etc.)
• Ask other vendors to present (IBM has already made a presentation, perhaps,HP, SUN, DEC, etc. would come). Members were asked to contact their favorite vendor to invite them.

Question was asked by Janani: Should we go with bi-monthly meetings until we have a large enough volume of topics to justify meeting monthly again?

Should we as a group get involved in participating in a DCE cell with other regional user groups. The Denver group is heading up an effort to do this. The question was asked: what would we use it for? It was hard to see any advantage over standard WWW capabilities at this time.

Presentations:

Gradient - Derek Brink

email: Derek_Brink@gradient.com

DCE Products overview.

Platform coverage: Windows, UnixWare, Macintosh

Gradient is primarily a "client" company, although they are getting more into the "server" end of things lately. They rely on the other vendors,: IBM, HP, DEC, for the larger DCE servers.

DCE Release timeline.

• OSF sets the pace
• One year ago they supported Windows 3.1 only. (1.02)
• Windows/NT (1.03) released June '95 (client &server)
• Win/95 (1.03) release is imminent (within 60 days of August 24)
• Macintosh for MacOS 7.5 (1.1) release is due by YE'95 (68K and PowerPC - client only)
• DCE (1.1) for WIN/NT & Win/95 by 2Q96 various SYS-V clients and servers, as well.

PC-DCE/16 - 16 bit Windows version

• Implemented as a DLL (~2M virtual)

PC-DCE/32 - 32 bit windows version

• First complete release of DCE secure core (client &server) for Win/NT.
• Based wholly on OSF source code.
• 32 bit implementation takes full advantage of pre-emptive multi-tasking.
• Integrated with Windows/NT services sub-system.

SYS-V DCE

• For SVR4 systems.

Mac-DCE

• For MacOS 7.5 (client only, no server)

DCE-Netware gateway

• Interoperate with Netware
• Novell provided initial funding.
• Phase I.
  • Client access to Netware services.

Visual-DCE

• Application Development tool for MS/Windows platforms.
• Optimized for MS/Visual Basic
• Provides "OO" view of DCE functions.
• Has IDL back-end (VIDL) which generates Visual Basic interface code from IDL.

DCE and WEB Integration

• Security seems to be driving the market for proprietary Web servers.
• Windows + MAC = about 72% of the "browser" market.
• Large growth in corporate use of WWW.
• DCE-WEB will provide 6 of the 8 attributes of security; authentication, privacy, etc.
• Provides value added features to WWW access, such as location-independent URLs.
• Supports existing web browsers, unmodified, using HTTP or S-HTTP, via a DCE Web "proxy" on the client.
• DCE Web Server is a full HTTPD implementation, supporting DCE-RPC in addition to HTTP and S-HTTP.
• Replaces existing Web servers.

Applications:

• Internal Webs

  • Provide access control within the corporate environment
  • DCE client and DCE-WEB proxy required on every desktop using a Web browser, and needing access to DCE-WEB server.

• Inter-entity Webs

  • Prior arrangement between corporations and business partners, similar to EDI.
  • Provides security and scalability.
  • Initial development funding via OSF Research Institute
  • Advanced Technology Offer availability. Gradient will market after first year?

Timeline:

• Server replacement and proxy for existing browsers (clients) (10/95).
• Multiprotocol server (01/96)
• Web management tool kit (04/96)
• Proxy to support existing web servers (08/96)
• Analysis of transactional application extensions (05/96)(Decision as to whether or not to apply resources to this area).

Summary

• This is a "killer" application of DCE.
• The "window of opportunity" (for Gradient) is short.
• Have received excellent early customer feedback.
• Is an excellent "strategic fit" for Gradient.

Questions to Derek from members:

•  
• Q: What about a DFS client?
• A: Gradient is partnering with other companies on this one. Are evaluating possibilities at this time. Transarc is working on DFS for Windows/NT.Macintosh - is unknown at this time. Gradient would need a strong business case in order to pursue it.

End of Gradient presentation.

Just before the break, a discussion about the OSF Developers Conference occurred:

• Some of the presentations at the conference were very good, others were real duds.
• IBM had one of the most impressive presentations.
• DECs client presentation was good.

Presentations continued:

Open Environment Corporation (OEC)

•  
• A product suite to make DCE easier to use.
• DCE was never intended to be an application development tool.
• OEC is a pioneer in open distributed computing.
• Software component development based on "intelligent middle-ware".
• Architectural vision.
• OEC is a member of OSF and OMG.
• Was a "spin-off" from the Cambridge Technology Group (CTG) in 1992.
• "Business and technology must work together".
• Revenues have increased from $3.3M in 1992 to a projected $28M in 1995.
• Have been moving from primarily an education provider toa software provider.
• Suite of products under the name "Entera".
• About 150 customer companies, presently.
• Largest production application presently supported has 32,000 clients.
• Education is still a key component of what OEC does, with a wide variety of "courseware" available.
• Solution services are also provided via a team of consultants.

Overview of 3 tiered architecture

1. Presentation layer
2. Business logic layer.
3. Data management layer

• Fat client versus fat server must be evaluated.
• Breaking the scalability barrier via the 3 tiered architecture and DCE-based C/S.
• Implementation of the 3 layers can be done in parallel.
• RPC is used exclusively for communication between the 3 layers.

Entera - supports the entire application life cycle, -Development / Runtime /Management.

• Development

  • RPCmake - stub compiler.
    • Generates stub code in the native language being used.
    • Easy interface across network and language environments.
  • SQLmake - ANSI SQL.
    • Generates IDL from SQL.
    • Eliminate the need for SQL imbedded in the application code.
  • TPmake - code generator for transactional applications.
    • Is X/Open XA compliant.
  • Scripting tools
    • For integrating legacy applications with C/S (3270 and VT100)
    • Allow access to legacy systems and databases as if they were RPC servers.
  • RPCdebug - interactive debugger.
    • All interfaces can be tested before client code is developed.

• Runtime environments.

  • Supports DCE, or TCP/IP can be used via a proprietary RPC environment.
  • "Instant" migration from TCP/IP support to native DCE by simply recompiling and linking the stubs.
  • Both the DCE and proprietary environments include RPC, Directory services, and Security.

• Management Services

  • Netminder

    • Provides central management of all application servers.
    • Creates a fault tolerant environment.

Entera and DCE

• Coexist easily.
• Added values.
  • Automates the use of DCE services.
    • No need to call DCE API.
    • Makes DCE "transparent".
    • Sensible default DCE behavior.
    • Doesn't preclude native DCE API usage.
  • Server initialization
    • 10,000 lines of initialization code you don't have to write.
  • Secure, reliable, robust server applications.
  • Directory services.
    • Manages server binding.
    • Automatic load balancing.
    • Client caching of binding handles.
  • Security services.
    • Sets up and maintains security context.
    • DCE compliant management of ACL data.
    • Extends language support beyond C/C++ (includes COBOL, PERL, Visual Basic, Excel macros, etc.)
  • Asynchronous RPC support is built in.
    • Applications can continue while an RPC is progress.
    • Multiple concurrent RPCs.
    • True multi-tasking is provides for Windows applications.
    • Callback and polling interfaces are provided.
    • Interruptable RPC provided for Windows.
    • Process management for non-threaded servers.
  • Added value for Management Services.
    • Configuration options are setable at run time.
      • DCE options need not be hard coded.
      • Applications can be "tuned" for their environment at any time.
    • Log file management.
    • Centralized application monitoring.
  • Added value for access services.
    • DCE adapter available.
      • Small footprint adapter code for Mac, DOS/Windows, OS/2 clients.
      • Provides DCE directory services and security without DCE client code.

DCE Users Group of Michigan (DUGM)
Author: Janani Janakiraman
Revised: 06/18/96
URL: http://www.citi.umich.edu/dugm/