Groupe Bull describes its new Distributed Computing Model as a roadmap to Enterprise Computing by 1995 (CI No 1,633), and George McNeil, chief executive and managing director of Bull HN Information Systems UK, believes that the Model is Bull’s most strategic announcement for 10 years. It represents the company’s open strategy for systems and services throughout the 1990s, and he claims that it is based on current and de facto industry standards, so it does not restrict users to a single vendor-imposed architecture. Consequently, McNeil says that Bull is now co-operating with former competitors, and the Model is being demonstrated at the Hannover Fair where Bull’s so-called technology partners such as Microsoft, Oracle, Informix Software and Ingres are endorsing the thing.

Gnaw away

However, since Bull’s own kit seems almost incidental to the Model, some observers are questioning whether it is the road to Enterprise Computing, or whether the company is all but abdicating its role as a manufacturer and assuming the systems integration mantle in its entirety. In many ways, Bull is making a courageous stand, and if the strategy works, it will be able to gnaw away and erode proprietary markets. It is planning to invest a further $2,000m on Model-based technology by 1994, and some of the past two years’ research and development is bearing fruit with LAN Manager for OS/2 and Unix, transparent database access, distributed on-line processing and imaging services. The company claims that it has had to wait for key standards to become generally accepted, the most important being the Open Software Foundation Distributed Computing Environment, which Bull says is set to be the Open Distributed Computing technology of the early 1990s. But, as with IBM’s SystemView, just how this sweeping integration is to be achieved remains mysterious. Groupe Bull has etched a broad landscape, but it has still to paint in the shadows. The Distributed Computing Model is divided into six components: Application; Application Services; Communication and System Services; Integrated Systems Management and Security; and Application Development. The Application module contains industry-specific end-user applications provided by Bull, other software vendors or the customer. They call underlying services and interact with the end-user through the Presentation Service. Bull claims that separating applications from underlying services simplifies the integration of new systems into the existing infrastructure. The second module, Application Services, consists of features that handle displaying, printing, sharing or processing information. They are grouped into classes – end-user, exchange or live data – but the company says users need not know where the services are actually performed since the software elements are shared by all systems and not replicated in the applications. The Distributed Services component is to provide transparent distribution of functions across the network, regardless of the types that make up the network. –

By Janice McGinn

Distribution includes distributed file services, interoperability and security, naming, remote procedural calls, network independence and support, time service for fault-tolerance and system management. The Communications and System Services module transports information and uses a range of protocols including OSI, TCP and SNA. Systems Services provide the basic functions required by applications and other services to interact. These include operating system functions to allocate memory and to create and manage processes. The Integrated Systems Management and Security module provides security and management throughout the network. Bull says that standards-based technologies are applied in management applications, common management services and managed objects. The security framework adheres to draft standards being defined by the US Department of Defense and the European Community. The last module, Application Development, provides an environment for development and maintenance cycles. It includes programming lan

guages and development tools; access to other components via application programming interfaces; a computer aided software engineering environment using a common repository; and an integrated project support environment. Open Software Foundation technology is claimed to be at the core of the model, with the Open Sotware Foundation/Distributed Computing Environment providing building blocks for systems developed under the model. Bull plans to implement its Model-based strategy in three phases. Key products within the 1991-1992 timeframe are the OpenTeam Workgroup and Affinity. The first is based on LAN Manager and it enables personal computer users – running MS-DOS or OS/2 – Macintoshes, workstations and minis to access applications residing on mainframes, mid-range machines or within a workgroup, and it has a common windows interface. Affinity provides a link between personal computers and Bull’s GCOS operating systems, so that users can process GCOS applications such as Magna, Focus and Interel under MS-DOS. In addition, Bull says it is developing its Open Alliance Strategy for enhancing the capabilities of GCOS mainframes, mid-range and minicomputers with Unix and personal computer applications, based on TCP/IP networking protocols. 1992-1993 will see new capabilities on distributed and interoperable Unix systems working together over TCP/IP local area networks, and Bull says there will be a gradual evolution towards OSI local and wide area networks. BeleagueredApplications on personal computers and Unix-based systems will be able to access distributed files, printing and file transfer. System and network management applications will facilitate administration of distributed systems, and the first applications will be for installation, network management and software distribution. Bull says it will work with software partners to expand the appli-cation catalogue, which will be built on object-oriented and expert system technologies. From 1993, Bull intends to enhance interoperability between GCOS machines, Unix-based systems and user workstations. In conjunction with the Model, it will offer a range of services that users can exploit at the desktop. These will include network services, requirement analysis, modelling, capacity analysis and performance optimisation. It’s an impressive array of technology and McNeil reckons that the strategy will make Bull a leader, with others following its initiatives. However, the goals are highly ambitious and whether France’s beleaguered national computer company is capable of transforming a manifesto for federal computing into practice is something that many observers doubt.