From: SMTP%"ramsey@cua.edu" 13-APR-1994 11:44:23.71 To: EVERHART CC: Subj: April 12th Announcement: OpenVMS Futures Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 11:29:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Betsy Ramsey Subject: April 12th Announcement: OpenVMS Futures To: vms-steering-list@decus.org Errors-to: vms-steering-list-owner@DECUS.Org Warnings-to: vms-steering-list-owner@DECUS.Org Reply-to: ramsey@cua.edu Resent-message-id: <01HB4IA9TQCI8WWYGC@DECUS.Org> Message-id: <01HB4I8EOKLO0000KK@WSEWR.CUA.EDU> X-VMS-To: IN%"vms-steering-list@decus.org" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Comments: Send vms-steering-list subscribe/unsubscribe requests to vms-steering-list-request@DECUS.Org OpenVMS Future Directions HIGHLIGHTS o 64 bit virtual addressing for increased capacity and performance o Revolutionary, log structured file system that will provide radical improvements in performance and recovery while maintaining clusterwide data integrity o Windows based PC management station for OpenVMS system administration, allowing clusterwide management from single PC o Wide-area disaster-tolerant clustering; OSF DCE Distributed File System; XPG4 X/Open branding expected this summer NEW CAPABILITIES FOR OpenVMS Over the next 18 months, Digital will deliver major functional enhancements of the OpenVMS operating system for business critical open client/server computing. In addition, through its continued emphasis on middleware and interoperability, Digital will continue to integrate OpenVMS software with solutions based on DEC OSF/1, Windows, and Windows NT software. You will thus be able to incorporate a total Digital technology solution into your multivendor computing environment. Some of the key enhancements to be delivered are as follows: o 64 bit virtual addressing -- Today the OpenVMS operating system supports a 32 bit virtual address space on the Alpha AXP platform. Digital is moving toward a full, 64 bit virtual addressing implementation, to provide significant performance improvements for applications that use large (more than 2 Gbyte) files and databases and for large applications that are constrained by a 32 bit address space. While 32 bit systems incur performance degradation when using large files and databases (which must be broken up into multiple segments), OpenVMS AXP software will view files well beyond terabyte capacity without such performance degradation. Note that the OpenVMS AXP operating system will continue to provide a 32 bit environment for the majority of existing applications that have no need for 64 bit virtual addressing, and these applications will not need to change in the future. Several of Digital's compilers (for example, the COBOL compiler) on the OpenVMS AXP platform already take advantage of 64 bit technology to represent certain data types (such as packed decimal) in a more efficient 64 bit structure rather than in a 32 bit structure. The benefit is in the ultimate performance of applications that use these data types. 64 bit data addressability is scheduled to be available for the OpenVMS AXP operating system in mid-1995. o New file system for OpenVMS AXP -- OpenVMS software will support a revolutionary new file system -- a log structured file system -- that will provide significant benefits for Alpha AXP users: - Performance: An entirely new approach to the way data is physically written on disk will result in rates 5 to 10 times faster than those based on today's technology. The ability to support very large scale data caching (100 Gbytes and more in a cluster) will enhance performance further by providing the possibility of reading data from a data cache at memory speeds (microseconds) rather than from a disk at disk speeds (milliseconds). Performance when reading noncached data from disk will be comparable to the excellent performance of OpenVMS systems today. Any of your applications that require large volumes of random access writing of data to disk (such as high volume OLTP) could see quantum leaps in performance over today's technology. - Backup/restore: A radical new approach to data protection and file recovery will result in unsurpassed performance when compared with the backup/restore speed of traditional file systems. When today it might take 30 minutes to restore one gigabyte of data on most UNIX systems, the new file system may take less than 30 seconds to restore the data on OpenVMS systems. If you run applications that have large volumes of online data but relatively few data updates (for example, an online information retrieval system), you will benefit from the ability to have live, incremental backup occur for just those parts of files which change. This can radically reduce the requirements for offline storage and effectively eliminate the time and media costs of traditional backup operations. - Scalability: The new file system is designed to meet the data volume requirements that applications will impose in the near future. It will support up to 10 terabytes of online data and RAID sets of more than 100 Gbytes. Coupling this capacity with the performance features mentioned will let you exploit the 64 bit Alpha AXP architecture for such applications as full motion video, digitized voice, and virtual reality. - Compatibility: The investments you have made in today's OpenVMS file system (ODS2/Files-11) will be protected while you move your data to the new file system. Existing applications that use RMS will not need to change to use the new file system, and applications using the new file system can coexist in a cluster with applications continuing to use data stored in the current OpenVMS format. The various functions of the new file system will be introduced in phases. The first software developer's kit is scheduled to be released at the end of 1994, and the first production release of the new file system is scheduled for mid-1995. o Wide-area disaster-tolerant clustering -- In August, wide-area clustering (a capability provided only by Digital) will be extended over T3 lines to Alpha AXP sites more than 200 miles apart, enabling them to be members of the same OpenVMScluster system. This will give them disaster-tolerance protection from both natural occurrences and human errors. If a site goes down, all its computing will switch automatically to another site without disruption. To further extend the range of wide-area OpenVMScluster systems, Digital will also use ATM transports. o New Windows based OpenVMS management station -- As you continue to move your users from interfaces based on character cell terminals and commands to graphical user interfaces (most often on PCs), OpenVMS software will support a PC based management model with a graphical user interface for system management. PATHWORKS V5.0 and ManageWORKS will provide the framework for this environment, including a consistent look-and-feel for the graphical user interface, instead of the varied syntax of the Digital Command Language (DCL) interface today. Multiple OpenVMS systems and clusters, at multiple sites, will be manageable from a single Windows PC. Your benefits will include the ability to make OpenVMS system administration and management not only much easier and simpler to learn than is possible today, but also much less time consuming to perform. While the new management station will be intended for the exclusive management of OpenVMS systems, the ManageWORKS interface will bring LAN (NetView) and OpenVMS management together under one framework. The functionality of the OpenVMS management station will be introduced in phases. The first phase will support basic system administration functions, such as user account and directory creation, modification, and deletion across multiple systems. The OpenVMS management station is scheduled for production release in late 1994 for OpenVMS VAX support, and in 1995 for OpenVMS Alpha AXP support. o OSF DCE Distributed File System (DFS) -- The Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) from the Open Software Foundation (OSF) is rapidly becoming the industry standard for the way open client/server applications are created and maintained across heterogeneous, multivendor environments. Using DCE, application programmers can design and build true open client/server applications that will run on a variety of open operating systems and networks. While DCE is frequently associated with building distributed open client/server applications across UNIX platforms, four of the seven components eventually specified by the OSF to define the DCE were taken from the OpenVMS operating system. In fact, OpenVMS systems are expected to achieve XPG4 X/Open branding this summer: note that no other major non-UNIX system has achieved even XPG3 branding. Digital offers DCE today for OpenVMS and DEC OSF/1 platforms and in the future will offer it for Windows and Windows NT platforms. DCE runtime services are included with OpenVMS software at no additional cost. The DCE Distributed File System (DFS) provides the capability of local access to files stored on remote systems, utilizing a client/server approach. DCE DFS for OpenVMS systems will go beyond the OSF implementation to exploit the Digital advantages of OpenVMS clusters and the new file system described above. This unique combination of three distinct technologies will give you the following advantages for business critical open client/server computing: - Dynamic load balancing and server selection within a cluster. - Transparent and dynamic server failover within a cluster. - Concurrent volume serving within a cluster. - Up to 10 times faster performance when writing data. - Online backup and high performance recovery (the highest backup/restore throughput in the industry). Thus, OpenVMS servers will be an ideal choice to serve data to open DCE clients, such as DEC OSF/1, Windows, Windows NT, OpenVMS, and other vendors' UNIX clients. DCE DFS for OpenVMS systems will be available in 1995. __________ Open Software Foundation is a trademark and OSF and OSF/1 are registered trademarks of the Open Software Foundation, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark of Unix System Laboratories, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Novell, Inc. Windows and Windows NT are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. X/Open is a trademark of X/Open Company Limited.