Digital Equipment Corp has taken a further step in its ‘get everyone off OpenVMS and on to NT’ Affinity program, with the launch of two Enterprise Integration packages for connecting Microsoft Corp desktops with business critical OpenVMS systems. The two packages are a server version for OpenVMS and a client version for Windows. They will enable customers to access OpenVMS data and applications from an NT or Windows95 desktop. The server version includes management services, network transport and communications services, file and print, Internet services, application development and presentation services. The client software includes network transport and communications and mail services. Digitial says the packages are easy to install, and support both two-tier and three-tier client-server systems. The company says they enable the OpenVMS enterprise capabilities such as 24 hour a day, 365 days a year availability, to be extended to the Windows NT environment. Presumably customers are not going to want to desert OpenVMS for NT until the latter has its own fully fledged ‘enterprise’ reliability, so in the mean time, the company is offering customers what is, according to vice president of the Windows NT and OpenVMS systems group Wes Melling, the best of both worlds – OpenVMS and Windows NT – for their high- volume, mission-critical applications. The Digital Integration Packages are available now from DEC and its partners, and they will also be bundled with all OpenVMS AlphaServer systems. An upgrade package for existing users of the NAS 200 server network integration software is also available. Prices are from $4,900 for the OpenVMS server, and $315 for a single-user client license.
