New Products

IBM Cross-Licenses Wabi from SunSelect

As part of a cross-licensing agreement with SunSelect, IBM has licensed SunSelect's Wabi software for use on its RISC System/6000 workstations. Wabi lets Microsoft Windows applications run on UNIX-based operating systems. With Wabi, RS/6000 users will be able to run existing Microsoft Windows applications, without modification, concurrently with their AIX/6000 business and technical applications on the same workstation. Wabi on the RS/6000 will also give independent software developers who write Microsoft Windows applications a broader market.

As an additional part of their agreement, IBM has licensed technologies to SunSelect that the two companies will integrate with Wabi. The agreement also provides for IBM to make investments along with SunSelect in ongoing enhancements to Wabi function and performance. Additional details on availability of Wabi software for the RS/6000 should be available from IBM later this year.

Enhanced Software Technologies Upgrades BRU

Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc., has upgraded BRU, its UNIX backup and restore utility. Release 14.2 of BRU includes AUTOSCAN. AUTOSCAN will detect hardware or software errors that corrupt data during a backup. BRU automatically scans each tape for errors after it is written. Other features of BRU include: automatic error logging, file inclusion or exclusion for selective backups, improved recovery for errors, and support for network system backups.

BRU can be used by system administrators or end-users. BRU will backup and restore many types of files including special files, links, pipes, and empty directories. BRU can be used as a standalone program or as part of a backup shell script. BRU supports various backup devices including floppies, streaming tapes, and multi-gigabyte DAT drives. Options allow BRU to compress data, perform full or incremental backup, include or exclude specific files or directories, and backup files unattended. BRU can also be customized.

BRU supports SCO UNIX, Xenix, Interactive, SUN, RS/6000, DEC Ultrix, AT&T, NCR, Sequent, HP-UX, DG Aviion, Motorola, Fujitsu, Unisys, and System V Release 4. Prices for BRU start at $299. For more information contact Enhanced Software Technologies, Inc., 5016 S. Ash Ave., Suite 109, Tempe, AZ 85282, (602) 820-0042; FAX: (602) 491-0865.

BREAKaway Software Introduces Picus

BREAKaway Software has introduced Picus, a system administration tool for UNIX servers and/or clients. Picus lets system administrators monitor multiple machines, workstations, or servers concurrently in any size network.

Utilizing a daemon-based messaging system, Picus lets users monitor and act on activities throughout the network. A graphical user interface provides the user with point-and-click functionality. Picus uses "Open Standards" to access heterogeneous platforms such as UNIX, X Windows, TCP/IP, Open Windows, and Motif graphical user interfaces. System administrators can pick and choose any combination of file servers and workstations to monitor, as well as pool users and systems resources into manageable groups. Combined, the graphical user interface and platform independent features offer the user common views of desired activities, regardless of where the information is located on the network. Picus lets users manage, maintain, and monitor disks, users and groups, printer and TTY ports.

Picus is made up of eight modules accessed from a main menu bar. Each module supports a particular aspect of system administration, including: Security, Watchdog Capabilities, User Management, Archive Capabilities, TTY Processes, Maintenance and Configuration of Printer Systems, Configuration and Customization of Picus, Pool Configuration and Integrity Enforcement, Networking and Managing Large Networks. Functions designed into each module let the system administrator search, sort, print, and mail information through global functions that apply to all the data views.

Picus is priced at $1995 per standalone version and $3995 for network packages. For more information contact BREAKaway Software, 165 Post St., Suite 415, San Francisco, CA 94108, (415)989-3600; FAX: (415) 391-0749.

Unison-TymLabs Releases Maestro

Unison-TymLabs has released Maestro for UNIX, an automated network workload management tool for UNIX systems. Maestro for UNIX lets systems administrators automate network job scheduling, tracking, and monitoring to increase throughput and reduce processing errors. Using Maestro for UNIX, system administrators can schedule jobs on the network according to date, day of the week, time, and customized business calendars. Maestro's client/server architecture also gives system administrators control of user access and production activities on remote clients.

Maestro supports network scheduling through a single console management facility. Maestro for UNIX also: schedules and launches jobs, limits the number of jobs executing simultaneously, integrates jobs submitted with 'at' and 'batch' commands, enforces job dependencies and control across systems and platforms, provides real-time job tracking displays, keeps a record of job execution and provides an audit trail, logs statistics for reporting and analysis, documents job completion status and automated recovery procedure, and ensures job processing integrity through fault-tolerant workload distribution.

Maestro for UNIX is available for HP-UX. Prices for Maestro for UNIX start at $2,000. For more information contact Unison Software, Inc. 675 Almanor Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94086, (408) 245-3000; FAX: (408) 245-1412.

Vulcan Laboratories Announces SCSI Bus Diagnosis Software

Vulcan Laboratories has announced scsi-probe, a SCSI bus diagnosis software package. scsi-probe is designed to evaluate the condition of a running SCSI bus and attached peripherals on Sun systems. Using scsi-probe, system administrators and developers can start and stop SCSI devices, check their status, request their types, capacities, and bus positions, and have them run and report their internal self-test functions.

scsi-probe queries run alongside normal bus traffic, nondestructively. scsi-probe can talk to any SCSI device on the bus--even those the operating system drivers refuse to open. scsi-probe runs on SPARC systems under SunOS, and offers both command-line and OpenLook interfaces. scsi-probe is priced at $300. For more information contact Vulcan Laboratories, 69 Levant St., San Francisco, CA 94114-1409, (415) 863-7988.

AGE Releases X Image Extension Alpha

AGE Logic, Inc. has released the alpha version of the X Image Extension Sample Implementation (XIE-SI) to the MIT X Consortium. XIE provides a standardized way to integrate documents and image data into applications for Motif and the X Windows System. With XIE, imaging applications can be developed for supercomputers, workstations, X terminals, and PCs running XIE server software. Through specialized compression and decompression algorithms, XIE makes it practical to access image data and scanned documents across the network. The XIE protocol supports color, grayscale, and bitonal image formats. Serverside image storage can be either compressed or uncompressed. Operators are provided for image reformatting, enhancement, and scaling, including color space conversion, convolution dithering, and contrast enhancement. Many operations can be applied to a specific region of interest within an image, leaving the rest of the image unchanged.

The alpha release of the AGE XIE-SI includes a beta-quality document imaging subset (DIS) of XIE, which is designed to reduce the cost and memory requirements for applications dealing with bitonal images. CCITT Group 3 and Group 4 FAX and run-length encoding compression schemes are supported in DIS, along with affine geometric operations (for scaling, rotation, and mirroring). For more information contact AGE Logic, Inc., 9985 Pacific Heights Blvd., San Diego, CA 92121, (619) 455-8600; FAX: (619) 597-6030.

Sterling Software Announces Batch Job Scheduling Systems

Sterling Software has announced two UNIX network batch job scheduling systems, Sterling NQS/Exec and Sterling NQS. Both Sterling NQS/Exec and Sterling NQS provide workload balancing across heterogeneous UNIX environments. Both systems let the user submit requests to queues for execution on connected TCP/IP devices.

With Sterling NQS/Exec, the system administrator maintains control over the organization's UNIX resources. Through an interface, the network can be dynamically reconfigured by allocating resources into pools of computers. Individual processors can be placed into resource pools. These pools can then be allocated to specific queues, users, groups, job times, or software applications. The Sterling NQS/Exec log file provides reporting of system usage information. As a layered utility, Sterling NQS/Exec does not impact the security features of the UNIX system. Sterling NQS/Exec supports the following platforms: SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX, IRIX, and AIX/6000.

The other scheduling system, Sterling NQS, provides the same scheduling and queuing services as Sterling NQS/Exec. Other features of Sterling NQS include: automatic workload balancing, job scheduling during idle cycles, and support for the underlying UNIX and network security. In addition to the platforms supported by Sterling NQS/Exec, Sterling NQS supports the following platforms: Alpha-OFS/1, ULTRIX, AIX/ESA, UTS, RiscOS. Both Sterling NQS/Exec and Sterling NQS are compatible with the Cray, Convex, and Control Data Corporation proprietary systems. For more information contact Sterling Software, 11050 White Rock Rd., #100, Rancho Cordova, CA 95670, (916) 635-5535 or (800) 862-3499; FAX: (916) 635-5604.

Advanced Archival Products Introduces AMASS-Migrator

Advanced Archival Products, Inc. has introduced AMASS-Migrator, hierarchical storage management software. AMASS-Migrator provides both transparent file migration and the ability to directly access optical disk and tape libraries. During file migration, AMASS-Migrator automatically makes space available when a magnetic disk's filesystem begins to fill or when user-defined migration criteria are met. AMASS-Migrator assesses the status of files and, based on the system administrator's criteria, transparently moves the identified files to less costly storage, such as optical jukeboxes or tape libraries. To the application, migrated files still appear to be present and are transparently retrieved when accessed.

AMASS-Migrator may be configured for server or client/server operation and runs as a layered product on AAP's AMASS filesystem. AMASS is a direct access jukebox file system that provides a single-device, single unlimited filesystem view of jukeboxes of all sized media types. Combined with integrated functions such as magnetic disk caching and on-line indexing of jukebox directories and files, AMASS provides a method for directly accessing removable media storage devices.

AMASS-Migrator is available for SUN platforms and supports optical and tape libraries from sixteen different manufacturers, from GBytes up to hundreds of Terabytes. AMASS-Migrator is also available as an upgrade for existing AMASS customers. For more information contact Advanced Archival Products, Inc., 6595 S. Dayton St., Suite 1200, Greenwood Village, CO 80111, (303) 792-9700; FAX: (303) 792-2465.

UniSolutions Announces Distributed Account Management Option for SysAdmin 4.3

UniSolutions Associates has announced that domain-based distributed account management is available as an option to UNISOL SysAdmin Release 4.3. This option automates remote account management tasks. The distributed account management option establishes administrative domains and performs account management functions for each domain level. Administrative domains can be cascaded to any level, while local control is retained at each administrative domain level. Using the RCP protocol, the client/server architecture handles real-time up-dates and provides a queuing mechanism to handle down and mobile machines and networks.

SysAdmin provides UNIX system administration utilities including account maintenance, local and remote file backup and restore, tape library management, tape manipulation utilities, system security and monitoring, network administration and monitoring, resource accounting and reporting, performance monitoring, cron management, electronic mail, and printer maintenance. The UNISOL user interface provides OSF/Motif, Open-Look, and character interfaces. The latest ports of Release 4.3 include Solaris 2.1 OS, System V Release 4, and DEC ALPHA OSF/1. The price of the distributed account management option for Sys-Admin 4.3 ranges from $75 to $150 per node. For more information contact UniSolutions Associates, 2103 Mathews Ave., Suite 1, Redondo Beach, CA 90278, (310) 542-0068; FAX: (310) 370-4024; email: craig@unisol.com.

Systems Strategies Releases EXPRESS Peer-to-Peer

Systems Strategies Inc., has released EXPRESS Peer-to-Peer for UNIX, a realtime tool for linking UNIX systems to AS/400s. EXPRESS Peer-to-Peer for UNIX is a bundled communication package which lets users: access an AS/400 from a UNIX system using 5250 terminal emulation, perform bi-directional file transfers, execute remote job submissions, and print documents on both UNIX and IBM printers. Another feature of EXPRESS Peer-to-Peer for UNIX is the "Common Interface" API for LU6.2 programming. According to the company, only four conversational verbs are needed for implementing program-to-program communications: open, close, talk, and listen.

EXPRESS Peer-to-Peer for UNIX supports combined TCP/IP and SNA APPN networking. UNIX systems running on TCP/IP can communicate directly with AS/400 systems running on an SNA or APPN network. EXPRESS Peer-to-Peer for UNIX operates over SDLC or X.25 for wide area networking and over Token-Ring for LAN-to-LAN connections. The price for EXPRESS Peer-to-Peer for UNIX is $20,000 for point-to-point connections and $35,000 for the networked version. The price includes installation. For more information contact Systems Strategies, Inc., One Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10119, (212) 279-8400; FAX: (212) 967-8368.

MaxTech Ships Double VISION for UNIXWARE

Maximum Computer Technologies, Inc. has begun shipping Double VISION for Novell's UNIXWARE and NCR's Intel-based UNIX. Double VISION lets one user control another user's terminal. When using Double VISION, both terminals' screens look identical and either terminal's keyboard can be used interchangeably.

This is the first Double VISION release which supports System V, Release 4 of UNIX. Double VISION for UNIXWARE and NCR UNIX is price at $395 per license.

In another announcement, MaxTech announced Double VISION price cuts for AIX, HP-UX, and SCO MPX releases. The simplified pricing structure has two price points: Small and Large. Small is defined as a system with 32 or fewer active logins and Large is defined as a system with more than 32 active logins. The price for a Small license is $495. The price for a Large license is $995. For more information contact Maximum Computer Technologies, Inc., 4343 Shallowford Rd., #B-4B, Marietta, GA 30062, (800) 582-9337 or (404) 587-9152; FAX: (404) 587-9153.

Cheyenne Software Announces ARCserve/Open

Cheyenne Software, Inc., has announced an automated UNIX-based data management software for SCO UNIX. ARCserve/Open for SCO UNIX supports flexible backup and restore choices through a menu-based interface. ARCserve/Open can execute user-defined scripts from within the program or at the command line. Queue Management lets users establish prioritized queues in which backup jobs may be scheduled. Management options include job rescheduling and modification, and an Activity Log which reports on the status of unattended operations. Other features include the ability to count files, purge files, and scan tapes.

ARCserve/Open for SCO UNIX also lets multiple backup sessions be individually stored on a single tape. The Drive Chaining feature lets large sessions span multiple tape drives. ARCserve/Open's File Tracking System maintains a database of backup records, and its Quick File Access feature accesses and initiates the restoration of all or part of any session. Other features of ARCserve/Open include: Data Verification, which scans tapes to confirm readability or performs a byte-by-byte comparison of backed up data to disk; Tape Usage Database, which tracks tape drive and media life quality; and Error Recover, which continues restore operations after attempting to recover damaged data. ARCserve/Open of SCO UNIX is priced at $495. For more information contact Cheyenne Software, Inc., 55 Bryant Ave., Roslyn, NY 11576, (516) 484-5110.

Freedman Sharp Upgrades Load Balancer

Freedman Sharp and Associates Inc. has upgraded its batch queuing and workload distribution software for UNIX. Features of Load Balancer version 3.4 include multiple queues; a transparent interactive mode; centralized job logging; application grouping; availability schedules for users, groups, and applications; and a variety of control facilities. Also Load Balancer's front-end package for Microsoft Windows lets users submit and manipulate UNIX jobs using a point-and-click interface from PC desktop platforms.

Using Load Balancer's central configuration file, system administrators retain control over who can run what, where, and when on the network. Load Balancer, which requires no application or kernel modifications, can be reconfigured on-the-fly at any time without having to reboot or restart any daemons. Users may run, view, kill, and manipulate their jobs from any computer on the network. Interactive character and X window applications are also supported. Load Balancer also includes a network-wide batch queuing system which is used to queue jobs when no suitable computer is available or when execution should be deferred until a later time. Load Balancer is available for Sun, HP, IBM, DEC, AND SGI UNIX platforms. For more information contact Freedman Sharp and Associates Inc., 508-1011-1st Street S.W., Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2R 1J2, (403) 264-4822; FAX: (403) 264-0873; email: dan@fsa.ca.

MEC Introduces SysDraw

Microsystems Engineering Company (MEC) has introduced SysDraw, a network illustration tool that lets users create detailed representations of computer networks and telecommunication systems. SysDraw is composed of over 3,000 replicas of Digital, IBM, HP, Sun, Synoptics and Cysco hardware, network and communication equipment, various PC workstations, printers, terminals, and scanners. Users drag and drop the images onto the SysDraw screen to enhance proposals and network documentation. With the images on the screen, SysDraw lets the user add colors, borders, and shading. SysDraw supports exact positioning of objects along with object and text scalability.

SysDraw is available on eight platforms including MS DOS, MS Windows, VAX/VMS, and UNIX. SysDraw is interoperable among the platforms supported. SysDraw can be used as a standalone graphics package or purchased as an integrated product including a word processor and charting package. SysDraw is compatible with the MASS-11 Classic Document Processor and WiziWord, MEC's graphical word processor. SysDraw is priced at $995, which includes a choice of two library groups. Additional library groups are $199 each. For more information contact Microsystems Engineering Company, 2500 W. Higgins Rd., Suite 950, Hoffman Estates, IL 60195, (708) 882-0111; FAX: (708) 882-8397.

Ready-to-Run Software Announces Support for HP-UX 9.0 and Solaris 2

Ready-to-Run Software, Inc. has announced that its ReadyPak line now supports HP9000/700 HP-UX 9.0 and Sun SPARC Solaris 2.1 and 2.2 platforms. ReadyPaks are collections of UNIX software that include: language and software development tools, office utilities, text management software, general utilities, X Windows, FAX, and communication products. ReadyPaks are currently available on Sun, DEC, IBM, HP and various Intel platforms. The programs on the ReadyPaks have been selected from the best of popular publicly available UNIX software, otherwise available in source from from UNIX networks and bulletin boards. Ready-to-Run has built these into finished ready-to-run versions for specific UNIX environments.

ReadyPaks are priced under $300. For more information contact Ready-to-Run Software, Inc., Rustic Trail, Groton, MA 01450, (508) 448-3959; FAX: (508) 448-2989; email: info@rtr.com.

Precise Electronics Announces UNI-ZIP

Precise Electronics has announced UNI-ZIP Version 2, a data compression archiver, for 386 UNIX/XENIX systems, Sun SPARC, and IBM RS/6000 workstations. UNI-ZIP Version 2 is compatible with PKZIP Version 2, the MS-DOS archiver. Archives made by MS-DOS PKZIP and UNI-ZIP are interchangeable.

The company claims UNI-ZIP archives, as compared to UNIX compressed .tar archives, are smaller, more secure due to a 32-bit CRC integrity check, and more convenient. Additionally, their release describes the archive directory and individual files as "immediately" accessible. The price for a single CPU UNI-ZIP license is $119. UNI-ZIP is sold with a 30-day money-back guarantee. For more information contact Precise Electronics, 31 Englewood Ave., Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 566-6867.

Information Resources Upgrades COSORT

Information Resources, Inc., has upgraded COSORT, its sort/merger package designed for UNIX data processing and application development. Features of COSORT 3.0 include "BlockSize" parameter tuning, and SORTCL. The "BlockSize" tuning parameter lets users assign large record blocks for sorting. Users can set an optimal number of bytes per physical read and write for each sort execution. According to the company, "the resulting throughput improvement over Version 2.5 is, on average, between 15 and 25%." The mainframe sort interface to COSORT 3.0, called SORTCL for SORT Control Language, has a command set that includes record header and trailer labeling, multiple format input and output files, and field summing.

COSORT 3.0 license fees start at $990, depending on configuration. For more information contact Information Resources, Inc., 319 Decker Rd, M/S RR1, Craryville, NY 12521, (518) 851-9822; email: cosort@iri.com.

Qualtrak Upgrades DDTs

Qualtrak Corporation of Santa Clara, CA has upgraded its Distributed Tracking System, DDTs. Release 3.0 of DDTs includes a graphical user interface, integration with other UNIX Configuration Management Systems, a developer's "To Do" list, and better email handling. Release 3.0 supports both GUI and TTY interfaces and provides backward compatibility for systems installed from earlier releases. Release 3.0 is also integrated with ClearCase from Atria Software, Aidede-Camp for SMDS, SCCS, RCS, CVC, and Softbench Encapsulated SCCS or RCS. DDTs can support these CM systems concurrently on the same machine. The DDTs "To Do" list gives developers the ability to write notes and action items in the list organizer. The email system is based on a TCP/IP-like protocol layered on top of E-mail. For more information contact Qualtrak Corporation, 3160 de la Cruz, Ste. 206, Santa Clara, CA 95054, (408) 748-9500; FAX: (408) 748-8468.