Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: raw@stardust.sj.unisys.com (Bob Wipfel)
Subject: Re: CHORUS/UnixWare
Organization: Unisys Open Systems Group, San Jose
Date: 26 Oct 1994 15:04:28 GMT
Message-ID: <38lr5s$2e9@ctnews2.sj.unisys.com>

Cross posted from comp.os.chorus:

In article <38jnu8$2n5@ctnews2.sj.unisys.com>, barry@starbase.sj.unisys.com (Barry Gleeson) writes:
|> In article <37qnvq$11v@tdc.dircon.co.uk>,
|> simon@tdc.dircon.co.uk (Simon Ritchie) writes:
|> 
|> > I attended a presentation by some Novell staff last week on the future
|> > of UNIXWare, Novell's version of UNIX.  They said that the plan was
|> > still to use Chorus as the underlying microkernel for UNIXWare.  Chorus
|> > Systems of Paris, France are producing the necessary changes to Chorus
|> > so that it can fulfill this role and Novell are producing the necessary
|> > changes to UNIX.
|> 
|> This isn't quite accurate.  There's a third party involved: Unisys.
|> We've been working on microkernel based versions of SVR4 with
|> Chorus since 1989; now we're working with Novell as well.
|> 
|> Unisys delivered a Chorus microkernel based version of SVR4.0 to
|> customers in 1991.  It ran on single and dual processor machines.
|> Chorus developed their MiX 4.0 product starting from this base.
|> 
|> Unisys then produced a version of SVR4.0 that runs on a multicomputer
|> and provides the illusion of a single system image.  That is: binaries
|> that run on e.g. Intel based SMP machines will run unchanged, regardless
|> of where the processes are and where the resources (files, pipes, etc)
|> they use are located.  Processes running on different nodes can also use
|> SysV shared memory, and can mmap files, despite the fact that there is
|> no physically shared memory.  This version of SVR4 - which we call
|> SVR4/MK - was given to Novell about a year ago, and forms the basis
|> for the work you describe above.
|>  
|> Since then, work at Unisys has focussed on creating a version of
|> ES/MP (aka SVR4.2 MP) that runs on a multicomputer, with single
|> system image capabilities, scaling to large numbers of nodes, with
|> excellent performance and system stability.  I expect products using this
|> technology running parallel databases to be announced in the very
|> near future.  Stay tuned.
|>  
|> > The new system will have (at least) three personalities:  UNIXWare,
|> > NetWare and Chorus itself.  In other words, it will run binary
|> > programs developed for any of these operating systems.
|>  
|> > Novell plan that this will become the official version of UNIXWare in
|> > late 1996.  An implementation of an earlier version of UNIX running on 
|> > of Chorus already exists.
|> 
|> And has for quite a while - although not until recently at Novell.
|> 
|> > The opinions here are my own (in this case my recollections of what 
|> > somebody else told me).  They are not the opinions of my employer or
|> > of The Direct Connection.
|> 
|> > Cheers
|> 
|> > Simon
|> > exists.
|>  
|>  
|>  
|> Cheers!
|> 
|>  
|>  
|>  
|> Barry Gleeson.
|> Unisys.

