P R E S S R E L E A S E FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- August 15, 1994 Contact: Ken Fleming Suite Software (714)938-8850 Anaheim -- Developers who need to create truly distributed applications now have an Objective-C Distributed Object Management Environment. Suite's DOME, whcih will release in August, is a complete distributed object-oriented architecture with class libraries, application development tools and run-time environment. DOME 3.0 Benefits Suite's DOME 3.0 lays the foundation for a truly distributed computing environment. All basic functionality needed to create a true Distributed Object Management Environment are present. The business benefits of DOME are time and money. DOME reduces the time needed to build applications that work across distributed and heterogeneous environments. All companies today face the problem that old applications run on physically disparate environments. The DBMSs, network protocols and operating systems are not homogenous. New application development is being forced to build applications that work with the old applications. Computers on the desktop are a reality. DOME facilitates building new applications that take advantage of the new high performance workstations while making it easy to tie the new applications to the old applications, i.e., application interoperability. All of this can be done much easier and quicker, with fewer maintenance problems with DOME. DOME Communication Services (DCS) is the underlying piece that allows objects to communicate with each other regardless of location. The Store and Forward is guaranteed message delivery. This means that the programmer does not have to handle synchronization issues. DCS guarantees that all messages will arrive correctly and in the proper order. LinkServices is the part of DCS that facilitates the building of protocol specific links. All of the logic of how to interface to the DOME is provided and the user would only have to code a very simple piece known as the Input-Output Subsystem Driver (IOSD). The IOSD is mostly done in the form of a Suite provided template so that the user only has to deal with the protocol specific issues. This also reduces the time needed for Suite to add new protocols. Once the LinkServer is done, it can be configured into the DOME dynamically and all DOME services can now route messages via this new Link. Since all messaging within in the DOME is done logically, this would be available with potentially no new code. DOME Message Services (DMS) is to allow user defined messages to be handled within the application as a data structure. DMS will pack and unpack the message and handle conversion of data formats between platforms. DOME Directory Services (DDS) supports name and location translation. This gives the user the ability to dynamically configure and reconfigure the enterprise environment without having to recode. Concerns give the DDS and the user the ability to keep cached information up to date without flooding the network with unnecessary messages. DOME Time Services (DTS) is needed by the user to handle all of the time problems that will be encountered by physical distribution. DOME 3.0 will supply library routines (classes) to deal with time conversion, time formatting, time zones, time arithmetic, etc. DOME Data Management (DDM) allows the user to distribute data and to find the data through the same definitions. The DDM's Data Dictionary is based on the DDS so the DDM can find all Catalogs, Schemas, Relations, etc. by domain. That is, the user does not have to worry about location or changes. The DDM takes care of these issues. DDM is SQL92 compliant as well as supporting much of Sybase's Transact SQL.DDM supports full query and distribution transparency. This allows a user to put the data where it makes sense, and access it from where it is needed. DOMEShell is a full featured scripting engine. Not only does it allow the user to write scripts to handle such things as logon sequences, it facilitates the building of applications that can analyze an input string or message and build output strings and messages. All DOME facilities (including user written ones) are available from the DOMEShell. That means that the user can write solutions from within the script without having to drop in to 'hardcode'. This is totally dynamic. Scripts are objects and can be distributed and invoked by all resources having access. Concerns may be posted on scripts. For example, a LinkServer would use a script to log into a remote site and would be assured of having the latest logon sequence. DOME Object Services 3.0 is the beginnings of OMG compliance. Object Services supports the registrations, storage and management of objects within the DOME. Fully supported types are User, Process, Application, Node, and Environment Objects. User Objects may be defined, stored and managed by the DOME. This facilitates the movement to object-oriented programming by those users wishing to make use of this facility. Features Messaging - Store and forward (i.e., queueing) - Sessions - Multicast - Link Services - Scripting support - Uses Directory Services - Message packing and unpacking - Message translation Directory Services - Scripts - Object location - Parent/child and peer-to-peer - Aliasing (i.e., logical names) - Concerns (i.e., the ability to notify users of an object of a change) - Application, process, user, node object support - Caching Time Services - Time arithmetic - Time stamps - String formatting - Time zone conversions DDM - SQL92 (DML and DDL) - Horizontal fragmentation (i.e., data stored in more than one location by value) - Vertical fragmentation (i.e., data stored in more than one location by type of data) - Replication (partial and full) - SQL92/Sybase interoperability - Distribution of data handled by DBA and DA, not the application programmer DOMEShell - Scripting, full lexical parsing, regular expressions, flow control, buffer managemernt. - Ability to invoke all DOME services from within script EventServices - Event Queueing - Callbacks - Event Priority Scheduling LockServices - Distributed Lock Management Object Services - Object store - Object location - Object registration Suite Software is a privately held company with offices in Anaheim, California and Dallas, Texas. The company was founded in 1988 and provides products and software services for VAX/VMS, UNIX-based environments, Windows, OS2 and NT. For additional information about the company or its products, contact SuiteSoftware in Anaheim at (714)938-8850. Or via email info@suite.com. # # # SuiteSoftware, SuiteDOME, Distributed Object Management Environment, DDM, DOME Data Manager and DOME are trademarks of Suite Software. All other brand and product names are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.