Orion Network Systems Enters The World Of Fashion

Main Article Text

Apple Computer has taken another significant step in the field by buying the Berkeley, California company Orion Network Systems, specializing in the production of software compatible with the IBM System Network Architecture. With this move, Apple strengthens its presence in the corporate market, guaranteeing full network compatibility, between it’s Macintosh and the IBM 370 mainframe. The option of available connectivity with large systems has become an essential condition for those who want to enter the high-end micro information market. Orion has become famous in recent months for developing the sna62 Facility software that incorporates two protocols, which have a key role in the future architecture of the IBM network: the Logical Unit 6.2 and the Physical Unit 2.1. Both of these protocols allow establish joint communications between peer systems, bypassing the present conceptual understanding of hierarchical Sna. Today, to participate in the activities of the SNA network, a personal computer or an S 36 mini must ask the permission of the mainframe and submit to the role of a simple passive element inside an environment where the host governs all of the devices, with the assumption that it is composed exclusively of stupid systems. The new concept, peer-to-peer, otherwise known as Advanced program-to-program communications, micro, mini, and mainframe will be able to combine their computing resources and cooperate in the execution of common application programs.. By virtue of its strict adherence to specific IBM protocols(even exceeding the certification of Big Blue itself), sna62 Facility is becoming the core of which APPC interfaces are built by various manufacturers. Apple has used it to build their own MacAppc (see PCWeek Italy No. 7), Banyan Systems has acquired it to develop a connection to their local networks and the Appc environment, as did Apollo, Olivetti, AT & T, Honeywell Bull, Ncr, Intel, Bridge Communications (Novell) and Prime Computer. With this move, Apple becomes not only the owner of a technology that is essential for the development of the ability to integrate the worlds of 370 and Os 2, but Apple actually becomes one of the main international stakeholders whom one must ask if one wants to achieve proper compatibility with future IBM systems. Who would have ever thought this was possible ?

Roberto Mazzoni