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Stratus OpenVOS: new features, more open technologies
Keeping VOS highly functional and up-to-date for tomorrow's needs

Stratus recognizes the importance of keeping VOS highly functional and up-to-date for tomorrow's needs. Our overall strategy is to increase VOS' compatibility to support features and capabilities provided by third party open source technologies.

Benefits:

  • OpenVOS offers you, as a VOS customer, modern technologies on VOS that will allow you to stay on the trusted VOS platform if you choose to do so. If you choose to move off the VOS platform, it allows you to migrate easily to the ftServer®  platform as painlessly as possible and when it makes sense, from a business perspective, for you to do so.

  • OpenVOS allows VOS to address a larger computing environment, expanding the possibilities for integrating the VOS platform with other computing environments and other platforms.

Six ways to extend your investment in VOS applications with OpenVOS

  1. Increase VOS compatibility with open systems technologies. Making VOS POSIX-compliant and adding modern, commonly-used development tools, such as C++, has the following benefits:

    • It increases VOS interoperability and data sharing with open systems, including the ftServer® and HP-UX™ environments.
    • It makes it easier to develop new applications on VOS that are modern, robust, and more interoperable in a multi-vendor environment.
    • It helps reduce or eliminate internal objections to "proprietary" systems.

  2. Internet-enable VOS. The Internet is the business channel of the future, and VOS is particularly suited to supporting the Internet with five 9's of continuous availability. Open technologies such as Apache Web Server for a fault-tolerant web server, Radius for security, 2AB orb2™  for Internet connectivity, and Spider for converting FMS screens to HTML pages allow VOS to become Internet-enabled, with the following benefits:

    • It allows VOS to work in a more modern computing infrastructure.
    • It allows you to preserve expensive VOS application investments as you connect in to the Internet rather than having to write a new Internet-based application. This also allows you to keep what may be "the one application in your shop that allows you to sleep at night."

  3. Enable porting of non-VOS applications to fault-tolerant VOS platform. Technologies such as C++, 2AB orb2™ , Data Wise and Samba facilitate porting of non-VOS applications to the trusted VOS platform. This allows you to take advantage of existing applications and facilitate porting these applications to the trusted VOS platform. The ported applications can then take advantage of VOS' superior level of reliability and availability.

  4. Allow ftServer or HP-UX platforms to front-end or "surround" a trusted VOS application. Customers who want to preserve a trusted VOS application but need additional services to connect into this application can front-end the VOS application with ones on other platforms, including those on the ftServer or HP-UX platform. Technologies such as 2AB orb2™ , Data Wise and others facilitate surrounding the VOS application with additional services. Front-end applications might include, for example, a check management application, or more complex Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, or comprehensive Internet connectivity and security services surrounding the base of ON/2 installations, with the following benefits:

    • It allows VOS to participate in a richer and more modern computing infrastructure.
    • It allows customers to preserve their investments in a trusted VOS application.

  5. Facilitate migration to the ftServer platform, if you so desire. VOS needs to have the ability to move easily to the ftServer platform if you so desire and in the timeframe that makes good business sense. Technologies such as 2AB orb2T and Data Wise can be used to facilitate this process, with the following benefits:

    • It assures continuity with a vendor you can trust
    • It helps you manage changes in your computing environment in an orderly fashion

  6. Address programmer retention. Many VOS customers have, as their #1 problem, staffing and retaining VOS resources. Moving modern, commonly-used technologies to VOS, the ones currently taught in universities today, such as C++, allows you to be less reliant on hard-to-find VOS skills, leverage existing skills, reduce training needs, reduce porting costs, and provide greater job satisfaction for your programming staff.

OpenVOS Technologies Features

Features for Developers

  • POSIX, a widely-accepted standard for UNIX, helps port POSIX-compliant applications to VOS, and develop new, standards-based ones. POSIX is also a pre-requisite for many of the OpenVOS technologies.
  • GNU C++  is the most popular compiler available today to support both new development and application porting. Having C++ on VOS will also address your issues of programmer retention.
  • SAMBA makes VOS a fault-tolerant file server for Windows® and Windows NT® clients. SAMBA also enables your programmers to develop on a Windows platform and recompile this application on VOS. This might be a very attractive option for customers with both VOS and ftServer®  platforms in their environment.

Features for System Administrators and End-Users

  • RADIUS, an open, powerful security protocol enhances system protection.
  • Spider HTML, a third-party reference product, converts FMS screens to HTML pages. [external link] Information about Spider on Softmark website
  • STCP--STREAMS-based TCP--provides a standards-based implementation of TCP and supports new Internet protocols and functionality.
  • Apache Web Server, the world's most popular web server, provides fault-tolerant web services from VOS.

Powerful middleware technologies that tie in the environment:

  • 2AB orb2™ Object Request Broker provides multi-platform and multi-geographic integration, Internet connectivity, and Microsoft COM connectivity.
  • The MQSeries provides client support for IBM message queueing and connects VOS with the IBM mainframe environment.
  • NetX, a third-party reference product, provides a wide variety of network and Internet-based connectivity.
  • DataWise™ Data Replication