Distributed systems management contender OpenVision Inc is to support Digital Equipment Corp’s ObjectBroker, making it a key component of its product line in providing a common set of distribution services. The announcement from the Pleasantville, California company coincides with the one from Microsoft Corp and DEC linking Microsoft’s OLE 2 Object Linking & Embedding to DEC’s ObjectBroker, something IBM Corp may also attempt to do with its System Object Model, pushing DEC into something of a power broker position. OpenVision’s announcement will mean that the OpenV*Environment 2.5, the foundation of its modular object-based services suite OpenV*OPSS, is based on the ObjectBroker technology. As a result, the stuff should be interoperable with multiple systems and network management devices, such as NetView and Hermes. OpenVision expects to use ObjectBroker for enterprise-wide information access, software installation and distribution, event and policy management, access to an enterprise-wide object-oriented database for application storage and retrieval and configuration management. It plans to provide a set of external adaptors for SNMP-based products, such as Hewlett-Packard OpenView and SunNet Manager as well as IBM’s NetView. ObjectBroker conforms to the latest Corba 1.2 specification from the Object Management Group, OpenVision notes.
