The Project UDI (Uniform Drive Interface) industry group has now come up with its final specification, which will be available for public review next month. Project UDI, which includes Adaptec Inc, Compaq Computer Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, IBM Corp, Intel Corp, the Santa Cruz Operation Inc and Sun Microsystems Inc among its members (CI No 3,497, 3,476), wants to establish portable device drivers that can be used for Intel-based servers running any version of Unix. Currently, separate device drivers are need for each operating system. The public review period is set to end mid-year, and Intel promises to have completed its reference implementation four weeks after the process closes. It will be made available free as source code through the Linux community. The reference implementation includes UDI environmental services, SCSI mapper and meta language and a SCI driver for the Adaptec 2940 controller. An Open USBDI project is going on in conjunction with the USB Device Working Group, and Intel is developing a UDI meta language to support the I20 messaging protocol. Meanwhile, Intel has helped set up an additional working group of several leading Unix operating system and device manufacturers who are working on common Unix interfaces for Intel-based servers. The aim is to reduce the time and resources required to get new Unix on IA server software to market, and the group – which plans to formally announce its members and delivery schedule over the next few months – will define a common set of building blocks and hardware interfaces.
