Distributed heterogeneous client-server environment

摘要

This paper addresses what we have done and will be doing to facilitate operations in a networked multi-vendor environment used by chemists who will not need to know details of how their data migrates between various environments. The Nuclear Chemistry Division at LLNL is using Ingres Release 6.3 in VMS and Sun-OS environments on VAXes, Suns and Solbournes to manage and analyze data that support the division's missions. The database and applications reside in both the VMS and UNIX environments. Additionally, they have to exchange data and otherwise cooperate with MS-DOS PCs, Macintoshes, remote Ingres databases and other commercial database products. This environment is relatively seamless and transparent to the users and we strive to use commercial off-the-shelf solutions wherever practical. This paper will describe a very general client-server computing environment, but we will not be describing a leading-edge client-server environment nor will we be discussing federated or other multidatabase concepts. What we will be describing is a cooperative environment that is heterogeneous with respect to hardware and software vendors, network protocols and user community. We will discuss our approach to constructing this cooperative environment and some aspects of our management of that environment.