HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Chapter 4 Networking/Client-Server
HP Software Integration Sockets/iX Enhancements
by Le Hong
Cooperative Computing Systems Division
HP Software Integration Sockets (HP Sockets) is a software tool that lets
you integrate new and existing applications in a network of MPE/iX and
HP-UX computers. HP Sockets provides flexible data transfer,
transformation, manipulation, and process control. You can use HP
Sockets to connect applications on the same computer or on different
computers across a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN).
Enhancements for A.03.00
This version of HP Sockets includes the following new features:
* Dynamic reconfiguration is now supported. This allows new nodes
or processes to be added to the HP Sockets domain without having
to shut down and restart the whole domain.
* A new command has been added to the HP Sockets system manager tool
to let the user query which processes are configured, how many
messages are queued for them, and other status information.
* Improved network service support is provided. An HP Sockets
domain may contain both nodes running the NetIPC revision of HP
Sockets and nodes running the BSD Sockets revision of HP Sockets,
provided that all nodes are running HP Sockets revision A.03.00.
* Larger message sizes are supported. The maximum message length
supported will be increased from 1K bytes to 64K bytes.
* Improved message consistency is provided so that the same
interface can be used to read normal messages, guaranteed
messages, or both types of messages.
* Shared message queues or mail boxes are supported. One or more
processes can read messages from the same mail box. An advantage,
for example, is that this allows load to be distributed more
easily when there is a process that is a throughput bottleneck.
* The C compiler requirement has been removed for machine types that
do not need data manipulation.
* A message broadcasting feature that allows a sending process to
send messages to multiple dynamically-registered receivers has
been added.
* Full COBOL data types support is provided. Before the A.03.00
revision, the only COBOL data type supported was the non-numeric
DISPLAY data type. This required users to convert native COBOL
data types to DISPLAY. Now, users can use native COBOL data types
and have HP Sockets translate them to the equivalent data types
for the other HP Sockets supported languages.
Please refer to the related article in the "Technical Articles" chapter
of this Communicator for detailed information on the installation of HP
Sockets.
Additional Information
The HP Software Integration Sockets Self-Paced Tutorial for MPE XL and
MPE/iX (92616-90004) introduces the basic features of HP Sockets.
For more in-depth description of the features supported by HP Sockets,
order the following manuals:
* HP Software Integration Sockets System Administrator's Manual
(92568-90002)
* HP Software Integration Sockets Programmer's Manual (92568-90001)
* HP Software Integration Sockets Access Routine Reference
(92568-90025)