Conference ufhis::siemens_communication

132.0. "BS2000 goes Client/Server " by FROCKY::KREMPEL (Matias Krempel - Finance DCC D.A.CH.) Wed Jan 29 1992 09:10

By skimming through the January 24th edition of "Computerwelt" is discovered an
article "Access to Mainframe-Databases from Sinix and MS-DOS" written by Gabriel
Thorma, SNI's manager for OLTP-products.

My involvement with SIEMENS related issues is limited and I don't monitor this
conference on a regular basis. So just treat me as a humble translator.

Regards

Matias

Highlights are

- distributed presentation

  Sinix and DOS workstations can be clients to UDP (SNI's OLTP monitor)
  The product used is called Upic 1.1 with 

  + a client component "AWp" to be installed on the Sinix system for 
    doing the presentation work based on Motif and 

  + "AWv" to be installed on the BS2000 under UTM or UTM-D for the access to

     # Sesam/SQL
     # UDS/SQL or
     # ORACLE

  The interface between client and server is based on CPI-C

  There is also an MS-DOS client version of Upic available.

  The product will be released in Spring 92

- distributed application

  They have ported UTM to Sinix a while ago.

  The communication is based on KDCS-VTV (a first german try to standardize
  communication interfaces which - as far as i can remember - only survives
  a port of the german Vidotext-system BTX).
  The underlying Communication protocol is LU 6.1 (a predecessor of LU 6.2
  developed by IBM to couple their OLTP systems. In CICS and IMS it's called
  ISC (inter systems coupling)). This allows UTM to be coupled with either
  of these two IBM-OLTP-monitors)

  Future plans are based on 

  + providing an LU 6.2 UTM interface based on 

    # the already existing Transit-LU6 product, which provides a CPI-C style 
      LU 6.2 API.  
  
    # and a Sinix-based SNA PU 2.1 gateway.

  + using DCE, which will be available

    # in 1992 on Sinix and
    # in 1993 on BS 2000
  
    (planned feature is RPC)

- distributed data access

  + MMC (Micro-/Mainframe-Connection)

    featuring clients for Sinix and MS-DOS based on background terminal 
    emulation and file transfer.
 
    Planned is a new release supporting also MVS and DB2

  + DFS

  + Query-Windows

    a data access facility for Sinix-Informix/DBs based on Motif, featuring 
    database access to BS 2000 based on Upic (see above)

    The user interface is based on QBE (query by example) 

  + Alpha Query

    - more or less - the same for alpha-terminals

  + SQL-Gateway

    a Sinix-based gateway which provides MS-DOS based systems with access to
    remote databases. The PC-interface is either the 4-GL SQL-Windows or
    a C style API.

    The gateway uses UTM and TRANSDATA to access the BS 2000 or provdes access
    to Sinix based Informix, Ingres or ORACLE databases.

    Access protocol is RDA (as far as i know currently ANSI draft)
    

    Release is planned for March 92

  + ORACLE/SQL-*NET with an interface SQL+Connect/Sesam

- Mailing

  + X.400 on BS 2000 and SInix

- Directroy service

  DIR.2000 for access of Sinix systems to directory services on BS 2000 based
  on X.500.
  
  an MS(?DOS) version is under development

- Print Service

  PRINT.2000 Printing for Sinix systems on BS 2000 attached printers

- File service

  FILE.2000 electronic file cabinet on BS 2000 to be used by Sinix systems
  with a keyword based retrieval module

  Available somewhere in 1992

- Future bdatabase access service based on ESQL

  No product related statements