[comp.unix.xenix] SCO comms.

jas@goya.dit.upm.es (Jose Ramon Alonso Sotorrio) (04/30/89)

As I said in my previous posting about the Open Desktop 
conference, there was going to be another one on comms under
SCO, and again, here's my $2E-2 worth of notes taken during
the conference. It was held by Pedro Beitra, from SCO London,
here in Madrid last Wednesday.


A general overview was given to:

- IBM mainframe conectivity.
- Xenix-net
- TCP/IP
- OSI

This is what was said about them (and looked 'new'):

- SCO Unipath 3270

This is well known: emulates one of those cluster controllers,
and your ordinary xenix terminals appear as 3270 screens to
some IBM mainframe, and have sessions on it.

- Xenix-net

This is the first of three networking option, and the one primarily
designed to connect to msdos pc's. Provides file-transfer, remote
sessions, and pseudo transparent directory access. (use of '//').

suports:
  - ibm pc network adapter
  - sytek 6120
  - Async-net (slip ala xenix-net)
  - excelan, starlan.

- TCP/IP

provides:
  - slip
  - smtp
  - ftp
  - rcommands.

Two versions: runtime (binaries) and developers (+ libraries).

subsistems:
  - 3com 3C501, 3C503
  - Western Digital WD 8003 E
  - slip
  - token ring

Also announced, suport for Smart Cards with tcp/ip on board.
(intel mentioned).

- SCO NFS

As of SUN's standard. Requires SCO Unix 3.2 and tcp/ip.

- SCO ISO

provided:			binaries supplied:
  - complete ISO stack.				- ftam
  - mail					- x400
  - file transfer.				- mts
  - rlogin capability.				- libraries.
  - admin.
  
Posibly available in runtime/developer versions.

------
The overall impresion was that, appart from unipath, which is on
its own, SCO does not want to be caught supporting 3 different
incompatible systems, and so have planed for (should it be
neccesary) full conectivity among them.  It was shown to us
how the 3 networking methods could co-exist and xooperate using
each other services.

Much interest was raised by the ISO product. It had been developed
with some third party whose name I couldn't catch (tcp/ip was
developed with Lachman and Asociates(sp??)).

In fact, after this presentacion, the two first questions where
about ISO's x25.

Post-conference questions.
--------------------------
(Again, NOT quoting)

Q) You haven't mentioned X25. Is it supported?
A) Yes, but not yet available. We are working on it.

Q) How advanced is that work?
A) We are testing it.

Q) Your tcp/ip product suports smtp. Also sendmail?
A) From SCO Unix 3.2, mmdf (?) will be supported. (Here he looks
   to the SCO people and asks:
   - When are we shiping Unix 3.2?
   - 3.2 will begin volume shiping begining of July.

Q) Regarding NFS and the file system, will there be simbolic links?
A) Yes.

Q) On the ISO product, are working aplications of ftam, x400, etc
   included?
A) Yes.

--------------------
And this was it. Hope you found something useful in it. 
All the usual disclaimers aply, flame me only for my
posibly bad grammar :-)

jose.
--
Dept. of Telematic Systems Engineering. Technical U of Madrid.
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