VXM Technologies Inc, location in Massachusetts unknown, last week announced Balans, second-generation load-balancing software that is claimed to allocate and administer networked system resources for running various types of distributed processes automatically. Balans, which is to ship in the third quarter and sell as an OEM product and through dealer channels, uses the Hewlett-Packard-Apollo Network Computing System, and a Sun Microsystems Open Network Computing version is also in the works. Company president Franco Vitaliano said the software can interoperate with either networking schema or with the Open Software Foundation’s Distributed Computing Environment. Balans runs over TCP/IP networks and will eventually be available for VMS, MVS and most Unix systems starting with MIPS Computer Systems Inc, including DEC MIPS, and Sparc architectures. Vitaliano said Balans users will not have to modify existing applications, configuration files or operating systems. It also provides internal Remote Procedure Call support covering the competing and incompatible interoperability between their different naming and location services. Vitaliano claimed Balans far and away surpasses Hewlett-Packard’s Task Broker, which oddly enough does not use Network Computing System, has no C language applications programming interface or intrinsic Remote Procedure Call support and is not dynamic. Balans will be priced at between $6,000 for a starter system to $35,000 for a 200-node network. Developers’ tool-kits are $3,500, with the media and documentation another $300.
