Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!apollo!apollo.hp.com!mishkin
From: mishkin@apollo.HP.COM (Nathaniel Mishkin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: OSF Picks Apollo's NCS for Distributed Computing
Message-ID: <4ae0c7e2.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 8 Jun 90 13:00:00 GMT
References: <1990Jun1.180211.3586@idacom.uucp> <1056@fiver.UUCP>
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Reply-To: mishkin@apollo.HP.COM (Nathaniel Mishkin)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 56

In article <1056@fiver.UUCP>, palowoda@fiver.UUCP (Bob Palowoda) writes:
|> From article <1990Jun1.180211.3586@idacom.uucp>, by danny@idacom.uucp
(Danny Wilson):
|> > (Excerpted without permission from Communications week, May 21)
|> > 
|> > In a key selection, the OSF picked the remote procedure call
|> > in the Network Computing System (NCS) of Hewlett-Packard Co -
|> > one of the OSF's founders.
|> [some junk deleted] 
|> > between the two radically different RPC's.
|> 
|>   My question is can both of them coexsist on the same hardware?

Yes.  No question about it.  (I assume it's obvious that applications
written to use and linked with [only] Sun RPC can't talk to applications
written to use and linked with [only] NCS.)

|> > The OSF said the DCE (Dist. Computing Environment) can be easily
|> > ported for use with a number of operating systems, including the
|> > OSF's yet-to-be shipped OSF/1, AT&T's Unix System V, Microsoft's
|> > OS/2 and DEC's VMS. 
|> 
|>    How about DOS?

I can't comments on product plans either for OSF or HP, but while there's
currently no DOS-based product, versions of NCS have been brought up
on DOS.

|> I somehow doubt these numbers. Remember Sun is not the only on selling
|> NFS for unix. You got all the UNIX PC's out there that are servers also.
|> Not only that but I see DOS servers now.
|> Question, what is the best attribute of NCS that will make NFS users
|> change over to it?

People frequently make the mistake of comparing NCS with NFS.  NFS is
a distributed file system (DFS) based on Sun RPC.  Users of NFS generally
are unaware, unconcerned, and/or uninterested in the fact that NFS runs
on top of Sun RPC.  NCS is an RPC toolkit and is thus trying to address
the same issues that Sun RPC tried to address.  The skies would not darken
if EVERY distributed application in your environment except the DFS
"application" were to be based on NCS (and NFS, the DFS, were to remain
based on Sun RPC).  It is a perfectly reasonable and expected scenario,
given the widespread use of NFS.

An interesting question is whether there are enough OTHER interesting
distributed applications based on Sun RPC to increase the confusion that
might result from having both NCS and Sun RPC in a single environment.
I only know what see from looking around and reading the press.  E.g.,
a sidebar in the May 7 Networld titled "Planned ONC Upgrades" says that
while Sun RPC is installed on about 800,000 systems "Sun officials
acknowledge that people haven't put it to extensive use".

                    -- Nat Mishkin
                       Cooperative Object Computing Operation
                       Hewlett-Packard Company
                       mishkin@apollo.com