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- From: Jeffrey S. Haemer <jsh@usenix.org>
-
-
-
- An Update on UNIX* and C Standards Activities
-
- September 1989
-
- USENIX Standards Watchdog Committee
-
- Jeffrey S. Haemer, Report Editor
-
- IEEE 1003.11: Application Transaction Processing Update
-
- Bob Snead <bobs@ico.isc.com> reports on the July 10-14, 1989 meeting
- in San Jose, California:
-
- 1003.11 (application transaction processing, or TP) is one of two
- recently approved working groups -- the other being P1003.10
- (supercomputing) -- whose charter is to write an application
- environment profile (AEP). A profile is simply a list of pointers to
- existing standards within the POSIX OSE (Open System Environment).
- Where the group finds functionality missing from this set of
- standards, the group may either commission its definition by some
- other POSIX group or write a new PAR to request that IEEE create a
- standard in the area.
-
- This was our first meeting as 1003.11; the previous three meetings
- were as a study group. This study group was formed last year at the
- Ft. Lauderdale meeting to investigate the feasibility of extending
- POSIX into transaction processing. In those first three meetings
- there was consensus that POSIX should address transaction processing.
-
- At this point, the TP group is reviewing existing standards in detail
- to find out what's already been done. To this end, they have split
- into two subgroups, one to review models, the other to search out and
- review other relevant standards. There seems to be some consensus
- that once we understand what is available, there will still be new
- interfaces to define.
-
- TP under Unix is currently sort of a funny domain. Database vendors
- believe that transaction processing is theirs. They build TP
- primitives into their products that let application developers define
- transactions over modifications to data. More and more UNIX
- application developers want, instead, to write applications that bind
- a group of modifications to data managed by assorted vendors products,
- including multiple databases, screen managers and file systems.
- Sensing this need, X/OPEN boldly chartered a group to define such
- services. In addition, ISO, some time ago, recognized the need for
-
- __________
-
- * UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T in the U.S. and other
- countries.
-
- September 1989 StandarIdEsEEUp1d0a0t3e.11: Application Transaction Processing
-
-
- - 2 -
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- services to define transactions which span heterogeneous open systems,
- and began a group to define such services. ISO also has groups
- defining CCR (Commitment, Concurrency, and Recovery) and RDA (Remote
- Data Access), each of which is an essential part of TP, especially
- distributed TP.
-
- Both efforts are pretty far along. X/OPEN has defined a model and a
- set of interfaces but, since they are not a real standards body,
- referencing their work may present some problems for P1003.11. The
- ISO group recently resolved all outstanding objections to their model,
- services and protocols. What remains for us then is to place the
- relevant portions of their work into a POSIX framework, filling in the
- holes.
-
- September 1989 StandarIdEsEEUp1d0a0t3e.11: Application Transaction Processing
-
-
- Volume-Number: Volume 17, Number 46
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