Hewlett-Packard Co has added networking capabilities and system- and performance-management tools for the general platform release of its MPE/iX 5.0 operating system for the HP 3000 family of proprietary business computers. In addition, Hewlett-Packard said it plans to add Distributed Computing Environment compatibility to MPE/iX by mid-1995. MPE/ix is Hewlett-Packard’s Posix-compliant version of its proprietary operating system, MPE, launched in 1992, which comes closer to HP-UX with every release. MPE/ix is Posix 1003.1- and 1003.2-compliant, the Unix shell interface coming compliments of Mortice Kern Systems Inc, Waterloo, Ontario. The system sits alongside MPE, so that a mixture of MPE/ix, Posix and original MPE applications can be run on the same machine, exchanging data from the same or different databases. At the time of its launch, Hewlett-Packard managed to persuade a number of software houses to work on both Unix and MPE/ix versions of popular commercial software, bolstered by its cl aims that converting applications from its HP-UX Unix line was much easier with MPE/ix in place. The enhanced networking capabilities that will be bundled free with MPE/iX 5.0 build on the limited-availability release of MPE/iX 5.0 introduced in June 1994 and offer out-of-the-box communications with ARPA networking standards including TCP/IP, File Transfer Program, Simple Network Management Protocol, Telnet and BSD Sockets. Previously, this technology had to be purchased separately and installed on the HP 3000 server. Specifically, the networking additions are ThinLAN/iX, a collection of software that adds BSD Sockets; TCP/UDP(5)/IP, a Simple Network Managment Protocol agent and inbound HP-VT network services to the HP 3000 server; FTP/iX a facility for HP 3000 servers to exchange files and binary information between Unix system-based and other host systems using File Transfer Program; Telnet/iX Client, which provides outbound Telnet access from an HP 3000 server to external server hosts; and Routable AFCP, which enables terminal access to HP 3000 servers across a wide area network with Internet Protocol-based routers. One non-networking addition is HP 3000 Workload Manager/iX, a product that enables system managers to assign and prioritise process scheduling activities and allocate and balance processor resources among an unlimited number of user workgroups. It is, however, an extra-cost option. System managers also can use Hewlett-Packard’s GlancePlus and LaserRX reporting tools in co njunction with HP 3000 Workload Manager/iX to provide information for performance reports and to track historical performance data. The general release version of the HP MPE/iX 5.0 operating system is expected to ship this month. It is free to MPE/iX customers with valid support contracts. Workload Manager/iX prices go from $5,000 to $10,000.
