ken@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman) (07/27/89)
[ Sorry if this is a duplicate, our news system seems to be sick. --DL ]
After several months of alpha and beta tests, we have justed
completed a general release of the ISIS Toolkit and Distributed
Programming Environment, version 1.2. This version is substantially
extended over previous versions.
I have posted information on ISIS previously, and won't repeat
it now. If you are wondering what we mean by "distributed programming
environment", please contact me.
Summary of how V1.2 differs from V1.1:
1. It is faster, although even faster (substantially so) protocols
will be out late this year as part of ISIS release V2.0 . Many
problems have also been corrected, and the new system is extremely
robust even under absurdly demanding conditions with widly fluctuating
loads, frequent failures and recoveries, etc. The speed with which the
system detects failures can now been tuned, if desired (quick for demos,
slow for systems that run themselves late at night...)
2. It has been ported to more languages and versions of UNIX:
C, Allegro Common Lisp, Lucid Common Lisp, Fortran
SUN equipment under OS 3.4, 3.5, 4.0
uVAX and DEC 3100 workstations under ULTRIX, 4.3bsd, Mt. Xinu
Apollo Native UNIX 10.1
HPUX on the HP 300 and 800 (spectrum) series
MACH on the NEXT machine (release 0.8, 0.9). This version is
in principle portable directly to ANY version of MACH
Gould 9800 (not tested recently)
3. It co-exists with pre-emptive and "foreign" lightweight task schemes,
in a way that is non-restrictive. You can "mix and match" if you like.
4. It is now much easier to integrate old programs (dusty decks) into ISIS.
This used to be hard because ISIS had a "main loop" and all code ran with
stack size limits. Now, the main loop is optional and the main stack
(the one UNIX starts your program up on) is exempt from restrictions.
5. It is easier to port. Please let us know if you might want to port
ISIS to other systems. We'll be happy to help.
To obtain the system, drop me a note or email to my secretary, Helene
Croft (croft@cs.cornell.edu). ISIS is distributed in source form, and
we charge only to cover our expenses. We are also doing our best to
support the system (you can also purchase a support contract if you want one,
from a company we set up for this sort of thing).
Ken Birmanken@gvax.cs.cornell.edu (Ken Birman) (07/27/89)
After several months of alpha and beta tests, we have justed
completed a general release of the ISIS Toolkit and Distributed
Programming Environment, version 1.2. This version is substantially
extended over previous versions.
I have posted information on ISIS previously, and won't repeat
it now. If you are wondering what we mean by "distributed programming
environment", please contact me.
Summary of how V1.2 differs from V1.1:
1. It is faster, although even faster (substantially so) protocols
will be out late this year as part of ISIS release V2.0 . Many
problems have also been corrected, and the new system is extremely
robust even under absurdly demanding conditions with widly fluctuating
loads, frequent failures and recoveries, etc. The speed with which the
system detects failures can now been tuned, if desired (quick for demos,
slow for systems that run themselves late at night...)
2. It has been ported to more languages and versions of UNIX:
C, Allegro Common Lisp, Lucid Common Lisp, Fortran
SUN equipment under OS 3.4, 3.5, 4.0
uVAX and DEC 3100 workstations under ULTRIX, 4.3bsd, Mt. Xinu
Apollo Native UNIX 10.1
HPUX on the HP 300 and 800 (spectrum) series
MACH on the NEXT machine (release 0.8, 0.9). This version is
in principle portable directly to ANY version of MACH
Gould 9800 (not tested recently)
3. It co-exists with pre-emptive and "foreign" lightweight task schemes,
in a way that is non-restrictive. You can "mix and match" if you like.
4. It is now much easier to integrate old programs (dusty decks) into ISIS.
This used to be hard because ISIS had a "main loop" and all code ran with
stack size limits. Now, the main loop is optional and the main stack
(the one UNIX starts your program up on) is exempt from restrictions.
5. It is easier to port. Please let us know if you might want to port
ISIS to other systems. We'll be happy to help.
To obtain the system, drop me a note or email to my secretary, Helene
Croft (croft@cs.cornell.edu). ISIS is distributed in source form, and
we charge only to cover our expenses. We are also doing our best to
support the system (you can also purchase a support contract if you want one,
from a company we set up for this sort of thing).
Ken Birman