From: tamir@meiko.com 
Subject: net.views --- which vendor is the most open ?
Organization: meiko  
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 16:09:56 GMT


> wagner@utoday.com writes:
> Which computer and/or operating vendor has the greatest commitment to Open Systems 


Meiko's Commitment to Open Systems
----------------------------------

Open Systems facilitate the entry of new players into the computer market by 
causing a reduction in the barriers to entry. The definition of clearly defined
and widely published standards provides benefits to both the vendor and user 
communities.

Vendors can take advantage of modularised component subsystems, such as disk 
interfaces, I/O buses, Operating Systems etc, without having to invest in 
producing these items themselves. Newer, smaller players can produce innovative
computer systems without the R&D overhead that previously confined this work 
solely to the province of large organisations. With the lower level system 
components widely available, the system vendors can concentrate on adding value
and functionality by integrating these widely available components in 
innovative and more functional ways.

The benefits from the user perspective are equally significant. The establish-
ment of standards means that applications are portable and users are no longer 
tied to their vendors. Users can now shop around for the provision of the 
underlying hardware platforms and competition between suppliers becomes far 
more intense. Competition brings all the usual benefits in terms of increased 
functionality and decreasing prices. In addition, users can afford to invest in
more innovative hardware as the risk factor is largely negated by the knowledge
that should the user wish to migrate to a different vendor, for whatever reason, 
that this is entirely feasible.

To some extent, large companies can ignore or modify standards and still 
compete (eg. DEC's development of ULTRIX, their own unique and incompatible 
version of UNIX). Full standards compliance by these companies is often delayed
by their own commercial considerations. Many larger suppliers continue to deve-
lop and market proprietary system architectures. Meiko systems are completely 
Open Systems based and we have no proprietary product lines. In order to be 
competitive, small companies must observe standards religiously and must be as 
standards compliant as possible at all times. This is clearly understood at 
Meiko and is reflected in all of Meiko's products. Meiko's systems are designed
to use the most widely available and clearly established standards at all 
levels of the architecture.

Meiko's strict adherence to an Open System strategy is most clearly visible in 
the following areas:

* Operating System
* Microprocessor and Memory Architecture
* Disk and Peripheral Interfaces
* Expansion - I/O Bus
* Networking  

Operating System: SunOS: UNIX SVR4 
----------------------------------

The Operating System used on Meiko systems is the widely available UNIX version
produced by Sun Microsystems, Solaris 1.0 (formerly known as SunOS 4.1). Meiko 
maintains full binary compatibility with Solaris 1.0 and is therefore able to 
run any application (there are c. 4,000 now available) which runs on a Sun 
SPARC workstation.

Sun is a key collaborator with UNIX System Laboratories, the original prod-
ucers and publishers  of the UNIX Operating System. Sun Microsystems is a 
founder member of UNIX International. Solaris 2.0, the next major release of 
this Operating System is Sun's implementation of the USL's System V Release 4 
(SVR4) and will be subsequently available on Meiko systems. 
 
Microprocessor and Memory Architectures 
---------------------------------------

Meiko systems use the Sun SPARC microprocessor as the processor engine. 
SPARC is an open microprocessor design now licensed by SPARC International, 
an independent consortium of SPARC system vendors not proprietary to any one 
company. This openness means that development and production 
of is not confined to any single company and there is fierce competition in 
provision of this component. Among the major computer system vendors who have 
adopted SPARC as their strategic microprocessor architecture are Fujitsu, 
Amdahl, Sun, Hyundai and ICL.

Meiko use the MBus memory bus interface developed by Sun. MBus is now also an 
open standard administered by SPARC International. Meiko systems use standard 
SIMM memory technology widely available from numerous sources.

Disk/Peripheral Interfaces 
--------------------------

Meiko systems utilise the industry standard Small Computer Systems Interface 
(SCSI) standard for attachment of disks and peripherals. SCSI is the most 
widely used peripheral attachment mechanism in the industry and is used on 
systems from PCs to mainframes. Manufacturers of SCSI disks include Seagate, 
Fujitsu, CDC, Maxtor, Conner, Siemens, Micropolis, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and 
Hitachi. SCSI is also the most widely available connection mechanism for other 
peripherals. There is a very wide availability of peripherals for this standard
including optical backup devices (CD-ROM, WORM jukeboxes etc), Digital Audio 
Tape backup devices, 3480 cartridge tape backup devices and other more advanced, 
high capacity backup devices. SCSI support allows Meiko to offer the greatest
possible flexibility to our customers in terms of peripheral connectivity.

I/O Bus 
-------

Meiko systems support the SBus standard for I/O interconnect.

SBus is widely supported by third party manufacturers providing a very broad 
range of facilities. These include SCSI controller cards, FDDI network cards, 
T1 network cards, Token Ring network cards and multiple serial line controller 
cards. Supporting SBus offers Meiko customers great flexibility to address 
even the most demanding and complex I/O and communications requirements.

Networking 
----------

The ability to support SBus facilitates the physical connection of Meiko 
systems to the widest possible range of protocols and physical networks. This 
connectivity is augmented by the software capability in running the full range 
of Sun compatible communications software. This includea a wide range of IBM SNA products such as Token Ring, LU 6.2 - APPC and 3270.