Following IBM Corp’s recent communications announcements in the Open Systems arena, Digital Equipment Corp has now launched a string of new communications products, claiming that they confirm its position as a performance leader in open systems networking. On Tuesday at the Networks ’91 show in Birmingham, DEC unveiled DECnet/OSI for Ultrix 5 – DEC’s version of Unix claiming that this makes it the first major vendor to achieve full implementation of OSI – apparently ICL Plc, despite its new parentage, is not a major vendor. DEC also announced support for Token Ring within its Pathworks network operating system, FDDI signalling capabilities over copper and a range of network routers. DECnet/OSI implements Open Systems Interconnection as well as DECnet protocols within Ultrix 5, enabling, says DEC, a clear migration path to open networks and guaranteed protection of existing investment. The company sees users implementing DECnet/OSI for Ultrix 5 in network backbones, serving as the foundation for distributed applications and internal communications. Also announced on Tuesday was an OSI Application Developer’s Toolkit, enhanced to enable OSI networked applications to be written for Ultrix, as well as for DEC’s proprietary operating system, VMS. VMS users are also to be offered OSI and DECnet integration, although at the moment VMS users are restricted to using OSI end node capabilities. Other future plans for DECnet/OSI products include OSI for MS-DOS and OS/2-based personal computers, to be provided under DEC’s Pathworks network operating system. The company is sure that there are many Token Ring nets in the DEC environment, despite it being the IBM topology, and so has also extended Pathworks to include Token Ring support. Token Ring customers will now be able to use DEC VAXs, running VMS as workgroup servers and as routing devices between Ethernet and Token Ring nets, enabling them to share information and resources. DEC’s FDDI over copper products consist of copper port cards, new bridges and a controller. Its new multiprotocol routers are for the wide area enable connections between autonomous customers and supplier networks through the use of electronic data interchange and the X400 messaging facility.
