Sun Microsystems yesterday announced Open Systems Network, a global term for all its current and future networking products, and enhanced SunLink to enable Sun workstations to connect directly into an IBM mainframe. The IBM channel connect product is a hardware and software package based on a VME board that goes into the Sun station. Sun also says it plans to converge TOPS, from Sun’s recent Centram acquisition with its own NFS and allow them to talk to each other – next quarter. IBM is adopting Sun’s remote procedure call and external data representation definitions that are the basis of the Network File System. In exchange Sun will support IBM’s APPC and Document Interchange Architecture. A new LanDisk package enables diskless Suns to be supported by third party servers.
