The Internet in HP Products

 

Abstract:

 

The Internet is the most revolutionary communications tool in computing today.  Market demands and Hewlett-Packard Internet initiatives have led all HP product teams to evaluate uses of the Internet.  This advancement has made HP products more open and usable by a wider range of customers.

 

This paper will describe the current uses of Internet technologies in major HP products across different sectors of the company. HP products using Internet technologies such as ActiveX, Java, and the embedded Java Virtual Machine will be the primary focus.  Many other HP product examples will be highlighted and future directions in the use of Internet technologies will be outlined.

 

 

Brian Fromme

President - Cyborg Solutions, Inc.

 

 

CSI-99-01 Revision: 1.0

June, 1999

 

Cyborg Solutions, Inc.

4900 Langdale Court

Fort Collins, CO  80526-3946

 

Phone: (970) 223-6102

Fax:                 (970) 223-9219

Email:             fromme@cyborgs.com

Web:               www.cyborgs.com

 

Copyright 8 1999, Cyborg Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.

 

Overview of Internet technologies

 

The Internet was designed and implemented in the 1970s from research sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Administration (ARPA) and the Department of Defense (DoD). Originally designed to withstand a nuclear attack by allowing information to flow via multiple routes, the Internet’s first use in the 1970s and 1980s was mail carriage, file transfers (ftp), remote login (telnet) and bulletin boards (notes).

 

The first-generation Internet started in the early 1990s with the invention of the web browser. The browser is a client-side application capable of reading a document language from a server. The document language is called hypertext markup language (HTML) and the server-side application is called the web server. The term web comes from the ability to link documents by universal resource locators (URL) which can point to anywhere on the Internet. This first-generation Internet was characterized by a rapid growth in the number of web sites. The biggest problem with the content on the Internet at this time was static documents. That is, a document could not be changed once it was delivered from the server to the client web browser. The first-generation Internet continues today with fast-paced changes in technology such as highly programmable client browsers, dynamic multimedia, interactive sites, and online ordering. Table 1 shows an outline of common Internet technologies in use today.

 

Table 1: Internet Technologies

 

But where will the Internet go next?

 

 

The HP Internet Strategy

 

As HP sees it, the next-generation Internet will facilitate business to business communication. The Internet will be a critical corporate and individual resource, where services are a primary use. Some service examples are remote system administration, online customer support, and Internet-contracted human resources programs.

 

HP refers to this future Internet direction as “e-services.” E-services are modular services and IT resources via the Internet. Components can be easily combined to solve a task. For example, to book flight, hotel, and car reservation via the Internet today, you might have to go to several web sites and receive the end service from several different companies. In the e-service model, you would engage an Internet broker to schedule all these services as part of a single transaction. If a problem arises, such as your flight being delayed due to weather, your Internet broker would coordinate components to reschedule all the pieces of your itinerary for you.

 

So how would these components be constructed? HP intends to develop e``speak, an open platform for the creation, composition, mediation, management, and access of Internet-based services. The HP e``speak platform would be hardware independent and designed to work with potentially millions of Internet devices. Via e``speak, e-services can combine and provide a wide variety of functions. HP intends to make core e``speak software freely available to the component-development community.

 

Another aspect of the direction HP is charting is the Internet instrument. As the Internet becomes an integral resource for both corporations and individuals, there will be a need to interact via a wide range of devices from hand-held computers to medical equipment that can communicate easily.

 

 

HP Internet Products

 

If you look closely, almost all HP products now have an element that works in some way with the Internet. Rather than list thousands of products, this section will focus on the enabling Internet technologies that promote Internet communication. The next section will describe how HP is moving the Internet inside its wide variety of products.

 

The main HP Internet product offering is called HP Praesidium. Praesidium is a collection of software and hardware products for managing an Internet web installation. Table 2 describes many of the tools available in the HP Praesidium product line (note: all product names except for Verifone and VerSecure actually start with “HP Praesidium”).

 

Table 2: HP Praesidium Products

 

Another main player in the ability to manage the elements in a corporate network is HP OpenView.

OpenView is a network management system that allows views and control of software and hardware elements. OpenView helps a company with its Intranet via its flagship product, the Network Node Manager and its IT center management framework, IT/Operations. An Intranet is a corporate internal network that is modeled in the same fashion as the Internet, but is a private resource. OpenView also has Internet components to assist with security, such as intrusion detection and user/group administration. Table 3 describes several of the OpenView components.

 

Table 3: HP OpenView Products

 

 

HP Partnerships

 

Knowing that it cannot create all the solutions that customers want, HP partners with many companies. One example of a current Internet partnership is with United Parcel Service (UPS). HP and UPS are providing an e-business communications solution with the UPS Document Exchange and the HP 9100C Digital Sender. The combination makes a digital-delivery solution for sending and tracking paper documents via the Internet. Document Exchange allows digital documents to be tracked and delivered over a secure Internet connection. The HP 9100C Digital Sender sends paper documents in a single step. The result is secure, trackable, rapid delivery of paper documents. This innovative use of the Internet is an example of how services can be created to help businesses and individuals solve everyday problems.

 

 

The Internet Inside

 

Most of the examples of Internet technology use at HP have been in the area of products that directly target the Internet community. But HP is also thinking about how the Internet can be integrated into many of its existing products, such as test and measurement equipment.

 

This is probably the most interesting and beneficial change for HP products. As measurement capabilities become combined with the rapid, global, and relatively simple communication models proposed in future Internet architectures, the result will be a change in the way that people live. For example, today most of us need to make several trips per day from our homes to stores, doctors, and work, just to name a few destinations. With measurement devices assisting us over the Internet, we could keep up with many daily details much easier. A measurement device could keep track of the amount of water our lawn has received and another device could keep track of the security of our home. Combine the collection of this data in a home processor with a global network, changing lawn needs and new security threats, and soon we find that many of the tasks that we used to have to “run home” for are being managed for us.

 

HP thinks of these devices more in terms of its core competencies, such as electronic measurement and medical equipment. But the analogies remain. Individuals may be able to administer many medical checks via a measurement device in the home that communicates with the doctor’s office. Businesses may be able to compare PC daily board-test results from manufacturing plants around the world in real time.

 

Chai: Embedded Devices on the Internet

 

On of the enabling technologies that HP is developing to complement this marriage of measurement with the Internet is called Chai. Chai is building-block software for embedded devices to allow seamless interoperability over the Internet.

 

ChaiVM is an embedded Java virtual machine that is tuned to handle the needs of today’s devices. Since Java is an interpretive programming language, it tends to take more system resources and run slower than conventional compiled languages, such as C. ChaiVM makes the interpreter run in a much smaller “footprint” taking up less system resources which might be needed for other device functions.

 

Another component of Chai is TurboChai, an Ahead-Of-Time compiler to boost Java performance. Java language implementations today often come with a Just-In-Time compiler, which compiles Java code to machine code at runtime as needed. An Ahead-Of-Time compiler can improve performance even more by compiling the Java code to machine code before it is used at runtime.

 

Chai also provides a device-oriented web server that integrates with Java, call the ChaiServer. The benefit of a web server onboard a measurement device is that the device can not only send data to collection sources, but can also host requests from other devices over the Internet. This model allows many devices to collaborate on a service. For example, a cellular-telephone analyzer might need to check radio frequency (RF) communications levels via a spectrum analyzer before deciding if a certain level of noise is within a company’s specification. With the foundation of Chai, this sort of service will be much easier to construct.

 

ChaiAppliance Plug and Play is an open, Web-based standard for device connectivity that supports the Universal Plug and Play initiative. It is meant to connect appliances, PCs and services over the Internet by using standard Internet technologies, such as Java and web servers.

 

Measurement Devices

 

As many HP measurement devices extend their communication to the Internet, the uses of these measurement products change. Such is the case with the HP3010 cable television and return-path monitoring equipment. The HP3010 is a specialized spectrum analyzer with custom logic that understands multiple cable signals. Used by cable equipment operators, the HP3010 is a market-leading test device.

 

HP accessCable extends the HP3010 to the Internet by allowing network-based communication with the device from a personal computer (PC). HP accessCable also provides for automation of HP3010 operations and a PC-based remote graphical interface. All of this is enabled by the use of Microsoft’s Internet object system, the Component Object Model (COM).

 

The main benefit to customers is that cable technicians no longer need to drive their equipment trucks from a main office to a network node. They can now use the PC to control and automate tests that run 24x7 without the need for human intervention.

 

The HP16600A Logic Analyzer is a software-development tool for writing programs that will run on embedded microprocessors. The process of writing, testing, and debugging code that is destined to run inside a device, called the target system, can be time consuming and complex. Sometimes, it's not always possible, or desirable, to be physically next to the target system while developing code for it. This is the motivation for the web-enabled HP 16600/16700 series logic analysis systems. By putting a web server directly into the Logic Analyzer, engineers can automatic testing and development tasks. The analyzer can be accessed and controlled by any machine with a web browser on the company’s Intranet, or even over the Internet. This embedded web server allows full access to the instrument's functions.

 

Allowing devices to communicate via the Internet makes specialized hardware and software components available as services that can be combined to form new capabilities and automation. Just as we think of an Internet search engine as a service that we use to get somewhere else, we can think of these components as pieces of potentially new services for our companies or ourselves.

Summary

 

This paper has shown HP technology advancements by the use of the Internet as seen from outside of HP. It appears that HP and the new measurement company are well poised to enter the twenty-first century as leaders in the combination of measurement and communications via the Internet.

 

Through its e``speak and Chai plans, HP will provide technology platforms and components to build global services quickly and cheaply. Measurement devices will be a key component of these Internet services. The combination will likely change the way we live.

 

 

 

Biography

 

Brian Fromme is the President of Cyborg Solutions, Inc., a software engineering and consulting firm. With more than fifteen years of software development experience, Brian holds a United States Patent for the Encapsulator, a CASE integration technology. A former SoftBench Product Manager with HP, Mr. Fromme has done research in CASE, Artificial Intelligence, and computer languages. Cyborg Solutions, Inc. has specialized expertise in UNIX and PC development and testing processes.