HP 3000 Manuals

General Information Manual

System-to-System Communication 

Users need access to information distributed across a range of computer
systems throughout a company.  These systems may be geographically
dispersed and contain both HP and multivendor equipment.  For users to
access distributed systems requires interoperability between the systems
that includes industry and de facto standards for file transfer and
database access, and program-to-program communication.

With HP's networking solution for system-to-system communication, users
can access information and applications anywhere on the network as well
as utilizing network-wide resources such as printers and plotters.

Hewlett-Packard is committed to supporting de facto and international
industry standards such as TCP/IP and OSI to facilitate multivendor
interoperability.  HP recognizes that the transition to OSI will occur
over a significant period of time and that coexistence with de facto
standards such as ARPA services and TCP/IP networking will be required.
HP also continues to provide leadership IBM communication products for
customers requiring connectivity over an SNA network.  Refer to the "HP
3000-to-IBM communication" section for more information.

HP Network Services 

HP Network Services (NS), which corresponds to OSI layers 5 through 7,
provides powerful networking services.  It is used in conjunction with
the LAN Link, Point-to-Point Link, X.25 Link, and SNA Link (900 Series
only) to provide virtual terminal, network file transfer, remote file
access, remote database access, network interprocess communication, and
remote process management.

The HP Network Services are used for system-to-system communication
between HP 3000 computers and the HP 9000 and HP 1000 computers.  The
network services include the following:

Virtual terminal.   

Virtual terminal provides interactive access to other HP 3000 systems and
PCs on the network.  A terminal configured to one system is "virtually"
connected to all other systems on the network.  Virtual Terminal allows
log on to any system on the network as easily as logging on to a local or
home system.

Network file transfer.   

Network file transfer is a file copy utility that easily copies files
from one HP system to another.  The transfer can be interactive or
programmatic.


          Figure 5-4.  Network Services Functionality 

Remote file and peripheral access.   

This service provides access to the files and peripherals of other HP
3000 systems in the network.  Access can be interactive or programmatic.
The HP 3000 operating system contains intrinsics for file manipulation.
Since the HP 3000 treats peripherals similarly to files, the same
intrinsics can be used for peripheral operations.  NS extends this
capability throughout the network and allows peripheral devices, such as
printers, to be shared by multiple systems on the network.

Remote database access.   

The ALLBASE/NET capability provides remote access to HP ALLBASE/SQL
databases on remote HP 3000s and HP 9000s.  It provides transparent,
interactive, and programmatic access to HP ALLBASE/SQL tables residing
anywhere in the network.

Through remote database access (RDA), HP TurboIMAGE databases can be
accessed on different HP 3000 systems in the network.  Access can be
interactive, through Query/3000, or from application programs.

RDA provides valuable flexibility for database applications.  Data
captured by applications on different systems can be consolidated in a
centralized database and shared by applications throughout the network.
For instance, distributed applications for accounts payable and accounts
receivable can access a general ledger database centralized on one system
in the network.

Network interprocess communication.   

Network interprocess communication (NetIPC) is the ideal means for
implementing efficient distributed applications.

NetIPC is a set of programmatic calls that facilitate the rapid exchange
of data between processes on multiple HP systems.  The relation between
the processes is peer-to-peer so that any process can initiate
communication and any process can send or receive messages.  NetIPC
applications can also be designed to interoperate with Berkeley
Sockets-based applications on other vendors' systems.

Remote process management.   

Remote process management consists of a set of programmatic calls for
initiating and terminating remote processes.  These calls will normally
be used in conjunction with the NetIPC calls, allowing an entire
distributed application to be controlled from a single system.

Security.   

HP Network Services honors the security provisions of the HP 3000
operating system and the database management systems.  Beyond this,
Network Services allows the system manager to apply security measures
specific to the network.  For instance, one-way access can be specified
and node passwords can be required.

ARPA services 

ARPA services are de facto industry standards that are supported by most
computer vendors.  ARPA services provide the best open systems
connectivity for multivendor, multioperating system networks.

HP ARPA Services/XL provide de facto industry-standard multivendor
networking on the HP 3000 900 Series over both local and wide area
networks.  The ARPA/XL FTP service provides an easy method for
transferring files with other vendor's system.  The ARPA/XL Telnet
service facilitates remote logons between the HP 3000, other HP
computers, and non-HP computers.  Telnet access is provided by the DTC,
and allows users on a remote system to log on and run HP VPLUS block mode
and character mode applications on the HP 3000 system.  Access to
applications on the remote system by DTC connected users is also
provided.  See the "Terminal-to-System Communication" section for more
information on this DTC Telnet implementation.

OSI services 

Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) is a networking architecture model and
a set of networking protocols developed to provide global, industry-wide
standards for multivendor networking.

Probably the most widely implemented OSI networking capability is the
X.400 message handling system.  It is used for multivendor electronic
mail exchange as well as multivendor messaging.  The HP 3000 supports a
very high-performance implementation of X.400.

HP X.400/3000.   

HP X.400/3000 provides standards-based multivendor messaging services for
HP 3000 systems.  HP DeskManager users on HP 3000 systems can
transparently exchange electronic mail messages throughout a multivendor
environment.  Also, they can exchange those mail messages with public
messaging services in a local 802.3/Ethernet or remote X.25 environment.
HP DeskManager users can send binary files such as spreadsheets,
graphics, and word processing files in addition to ASCII text messages.

Users of HP AdvanceMail for the PC can also create X.400 messages.
AdvanceMail provides remote user agent capabilities.  Users can compose
messages on their PCs and later transfer them to HP DeskManager for
distribution within the HP DeskManager or X.400 environments.

Hewlett-Packard also supports an API for the X.400 products to allow
users to write applications such as electronic data interchange (EDI).

HP X.400 consists of two components:  The HP X.400 Server and HP X.400/HP
Desk.  The HP X.400/HP Desk product runs on HP 3000 systems and connects
HP Desk to the X.400 server.  The HP X.400 server is a hardware/software
bundle providing the connectivity to both LAN and X.25-based X.400
networks.


          Figure 5-5.  HP X.400/3000 

In addition to X.400, the 900 Series operating environment also supports
OSI File Transfer, Access, and Management (FTAM) standard.  HP FTAM/XL
provides multivendor file transfer, access, and management services for
HP 3000 systems on OSI networks.  FTAM/XL allows an HP 3000 900 Series
user to transfer or manage any defined data type between a 900 Series
system and other vendors' systems, regardless of their hardware platform
or operating system.  FTAM/XL service runs over the OSI transport
mechanisms-HP OTS 3000/XL. Together FTAM/XL, OTS/XL and the HP ThinLan
3000 link or X.25 link provide a full, native, seven-layer implementation
of the OSI model.

FTAM/XL is also designed to coexist on existing networks with TCP/IP and
NS or ARPA services.  This enables the user to take advantage of OSI
capabilities while continuing to use existing NS/ARPA services.  FTAM/XL
can act as a server allowing non-OSI hosts to logon using NS/ARPA
services and initiate FTAM connections to any local or remote OSI host.

FTAM/XL and OTS/XL will be available Summer 1991.

Support of these OSI services and link make the HP 3000 900 Series
compliant with the Government OSI Profile (GOSIP) version 1.0.  If your
HP 3000 networking needs include the ability to communicate with another
vendor's system, HP has a solution to meet that need.

MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation