DCE

[John Poltorak]

Does anyone know anything about DCE (Distributed Computing Environment) ?

I bought a book about it many years ago because I thought everyone
would be using DCE and I wanted to find out something about it, but it
seems that it never took off so I never spent much time reading the book,
although ISTR that IBM developed DCE for OS/2 at one point.

AIUI DCE enables a a task to be split up as many different subtasks and
allows them to be run independently on remote computers. Now with the
advent of high speed Internet access for many people, I wonder if a
project like building OpenOffice could be developed as a DCE app. It would
certainly speed up build times if it was possible.

[John Poltorak]

Post by John Poltorak
ISTR that IBM developed DCE for OS/2 at one point.

On further investigation I found:-

An IBM RedBook:-

http://publib-b.boulder.ibm.com/Redbooks.nsf/RedbookAbstracts/sg244785.html

A textbool:-

Understanding OSF DCE 1.1 For AIX and OS/2


Author: [Rolf Lendenmann]

Publisher: Prentice Hall

Publication date: August 1996

ISBN: 0134937503

Pages: 312

Price: 36.00 US

This book teachs OSF's Distributed Computing Environment. It covers many
aspects of DCE and teaches how to create control scripts and RPC programs
using Tcl, RPCs, and threads.



I guess I must have a copy of the software somewhere in my stack of IBM
Developer Connection/Toolbox CDs - but there are over 100 so it would take
a while. Anyone know if it was included?

[billn]

If you folks do pursue this OO/2 project, I will make available some
computing capacity on OS/2 as part of a support effort, as a DCE or full
source build. I can't offer code support as I don't know C++ and am very
rusty on C.

Right now that system is a Duron 950 with 512MB memory and two spare 4GB
SCSI disks. The processor will be upgraded in the near future. I'm on a
512Kb DSL.

BillN

Post by John Poltorak
Does anyone know anything about DCE (Distributed Computing Environment) ?
I bought a book about it many years ago because I thought everyone
would be using DCE and I wanted to find out something about it, but it
seems that it never took off so I never spent much time reading the book,
although ISTR that IBM developed DCE for OS/2 at one point.
AIUI DCE enables a a task to be split up as many different subtasks and
allows them to be run independently on remote computers. Now with the
advent of high speed Internet access for many people, I wonder if a
project like building OpenOffice could be developed as a DCE app. It would
certainly speed up build times if it was possible.
--
John

[John Poltorak]

Post by billn
If you folks do pursue this OO/2 project, I will make available some
computing capacity on OS/2 as part of a support effort, as a DCE or full
source build. I can't offer code support as I don't know C++ and am very
rusty on C.
Right now that system is a Duron 950 with 512MB memory and two spare 4GB
SCSI disks. The processor will be upgraded in the near future. I'm on a
512Kb DSL.

Well, that is very kind of you. It would be great to take you up on this
offer.

Have you set ever set up a DCE server? I haven't and don't even know if
this sort of project would be possible, but I'd like to give it a try.

I assume the task of a server would be to dish out appropriate bits of
work to clients and co-ordinate the results, although I don't have a clue
where you would start with something like this.

Post by billn
BillN

Post by John Poltorak
Does anyone know anything about DCE (Distributed Computing Environment) ?
I bought a book about it many years ago because I thought everyone
would be using DCE and I wanted to find out something about it, but it
seems that it never took off so I never spent much time reading the book,
although ISTR that IBM developed DCE for OS/2 at one point.
AIUI DCE enables a a task to be split up as many different subtasks and
allows them to be run independently on remote computers. Now with the
advent of high speed Internet access for many people, I wonder if a
project like building OpenOffice could be developed as a DCE app. It would
certainly speed up build times if it was possible.
--
John

Content-Description: Card for billn

[billn]

<snip>
Well, that is very kind of you. It would be great to take you up on this
offer.
Have you set ever set up a DCE server? I haven't and don't even know if
this sort of project would be possible, but I'd like to give it a try.

I don't know the answer, but I'll take a look for the info. I can do the
DCE server part, but my outbound bandwidth is low - 120Kbs - 15 KB. This
would be enough for patch files, but not to send out sources.

I assume the task of a server would be to dish out appropriate bits of
work to clients and co-ordinate the results, although I don't have a clue
where you would start with something like this.

<find clue>
I think my system will work well as a DCE client, but the low bandwidth
might make the server part too slow unless all the other systems
maintain a base source. This should be doable.

All that said, let me investigate the DCE issues and report back.

BillN
http://www.billswrite.com

[John Poltorak]

Post by billn

<snip>
Well, that is very kind of you. It would be great to take you up on this
offer.
Have you set ever set up a DCE server? I haven't and don't even know if
this sort of project would be possible, but I'd like to give it a try.

I don't know the answer, but I'll take a look for the info. I can do the
DCE server part, but my outbound bandwidth is low - 120Kbs - 15 KB. This
would be enough for patch files, but not to send out sources.

The way I see it, the server's role would be one of controlling the
dispatching of tasks to clients and being a central repository of compiled
objects which had been built by clients. I'm also assuming that each
client would already have downloaded the original OpenOffice source
independently.

Post by billn

I assume the task of a server would be to dish out appropriate bits of
work to clients and co-ordinate the results, although I don't have a clue
where you would start with something like this.

<find clue>
I think my system will work well as a DCE client, but the low bandwidth
might make the server part too slow unless all the other systems
maintain a base source. This should be doable.

I don't see the server's principle role as an ftp server for the original
OO source, just a repository for patches and compiled objects. It is there
to farm out tasks or rather instructions which the client should be able
to fullfill without download any large source files.

Post by billn
All that said, let me investigate the DCE issues and report back.

Please do.

It might be clearer to understand if the DCE environment was set up for a
fairly simple task, just to establish some basic procedures.

Post by billn
BillN
http://www.billswrite.com

Content-Description: Card for billn

[billn]

My initial search for RPC and/or DCE info for OS/2 has drawn a blank.
I've searched the IBM dev site and other places. IBM seems to have
depreciated DCE and is pushing Grid enablement.

I have some references below if you want to check them out, but right
now, the closest thing to what we need looks like BOINC. But this also
looks like overkill for what we need.

Note that the price for OO from Innotek, with other goodies, is very
aggressive.

I agree in principle that getting OO running independently is a good
idea, but does anyone have an estimate of what is involved? I don't mean
time, but what has to be done. It would help me to have some idea that
so I can look for the best way to support it.

BillN
http://www.billswrite.com

DCE, Grid and Corba
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-heritage/

BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing)
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

OGSA (Open Grid Services Architecture)
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-ogsadai/

OpenOffice at Serenity Systems ($39)
http://www.ecomstation.com/openoffice.phtml?title=OpenOffice.org%201.1.1%20for%20eComStation%20Released

[Dave Yeo]

Post by John Poltorak
Does anyone know anything about DCE (Distributed Computing Environment) ?
I bought a book about it many years ago because I thought everyone
would be using DCE and I wanted to find out something about it, but it
seems that it never took off so I never spent much time reading the book,
although ISTR that IBM developed DCE for OS/2 at one point.
AIUI DCE enables a a task to be split up as many different subtasks and
allows them to be run independently on remote computers. Now with the
advent of high speed Internet access for many people, I wonder if a
project like building OpenOffice could be developed as a DCE app. It would
certainly speed up build times if it was possible.

See http://distcc.samba.org/
Dave

[John Poltorak]

Post by Dave Yeo

Post by John Poltorak
Does anyone know anything about DCE (Distributed Computing Environment) ?
I bought a book about it many years ago because I thought everyone
would be using DCE and I wanted to find out something about it, but it
seems that it never took off so I never spent much time reading the book,
although ISTR that IBM developed DCE for OS/2 at one point.
AIUI DCE enables a a task to be split up as many different subtasks and
allows them to be run independently on remote computers. Now with the
advent of high speed Internet access for many people, I wonder if a
project like building OpenOffice could be developed as a DCE app. It would
certainly speed up build times if it was possible.

See http://distcc.samba.org/

Yes, it looks interesting. Will it build on OS/2?

I'd be quite interested to see if it will work on OS/2 and maybe split up
a build of Perl over a few of my own machines since it takes so long.

Post by Dave Yeo
Dave