Hewlett-Packard Co has announced the HP 3000 Co-existence Solution Strategy, a set of enhancements and guidelines intended to make its HP 3000 operating system, MPE, even easier to integrate with Unix systems. MPE gets more and more like Unix with each release and this strategy focuses on customers with HP 3000 systems that are not ready to rush headlong into migration to Unix but want to have Unix system-based applications co-existing with their current kit. HP 3000’s interoperability and data exchange capabilities with open operating systems, including HP-UX and other Unix systems, has been extended. Other changes deliver industry-standard Unix system-based services to the MPE/iX operating system, while others expand on the functions of the HP 3000. An integrated MPE/iX print spooler delivers basic connections between HP 3000 and TCP/IP network printers, enabling HP 3000 users to print to any Hewlett-Packard laser printer connected via a JetDirect interface over TCP/IP networks.
World Wide Web server
The Internet HyperText Transfer Protocol is available as freeware from Hewlett-Packard and enables the HP 3000 to be used as a World Wide Web server without any additional hardware. The company plans to introduce inetd and bootp capabilities, which are currently common to Unix, to MPE/iX to extend security and configuration flexibility over networks. There is also a C++ compiler, the Free Software Foundation’s GNU C++, for MPE/iX, which gives application developers an object-oriented tool. Cognos Software Inc, a Hewlett-Packard Channel Partner, has introduced its Axiant graphical user interface-based client-server application development system for use with HP 3000; applications developed using Axiant can be deployed initially on personal computers, with the HP 3000 as a database server. Customers can also deploy applications on the MPE/iX server and across both clients and servers. Additionally, as promised back in February (CI No 2,601), HP 3000 customers can now use the Distributed Computing Environment which gives them access to heterogenous networks while keeping existing data and applications on their HP 3000s. The company described the DCE/3000 software as expanding HP 3000 client-server offerings, making it easier for such systems to be integrated into heterogenous, enterprise-wide client-server environment. Also part of the strategy, the company has pulled together products that make it easier to access databases in different systems. Oracle Corp’s Transparent Gateway for the Image/SQL database integrates data from Image/SQL into Oracle’s distributed database system, making it possible to access Image/SQL data on an HP 3000 from an Oracle application running on a Unix box. The company also expects Sybase OpenClient and OpenServer to be available to MPE/iX customers in first half 1996. HP OpenView OperationsCenter has been made easier to integrate: installation has been automated and network-level enhancements that are important to MPE/iX system managers have been added. MPE/iX software now includes variables that can be used to control log-ons at an IP-address level. System managers will be able to see who is connected to their MPE/iX systems, and better manage inbound and outbound sessions over the network, promises Hewlett-Packard.
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