Open Systems Networking on Track for UniForum '95

The challenges and complexities of Open Systems Networking will be the topic of one of the 10 tracks, consisting of eight sessions, that form the main conference of UniForum '95 in Dallas, Mar. 14-16.

Open Systems Over ATM

"Implementing Open Systems Over ATM" will be chaired by Marty Palka, principal analyst for networking with Dataquest. Palka plans to invite three or four representatives of companies who are market leaders in the Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology for an update on ATM. The panel will cover the status of standards, examples of customers utilizing ATM in their environments, and the payoff they receive from using ATM.

Palka will also include a brief overview of the ATM technology itself, which is a digital switching standard designed to simultaneously transmit data, voice and full-motion video signals over local- and wide-are networks. "We'll look mainly at the benefits, a status report on how it's doing in the marketplace in terms of implementing it as a standard, and what the early adopters have done in implementing ATM networks," Palka says. He'll also cover how Dataquest sees the ATM market today and where it's going.

Palka recommends the session for end users who are considering deploying ATM networks.

Implementing Network Object Computing

A panel of end users from U.S. businesses will examine implementing network object computing in a session chaired by Michael Gould, editor-in-chief of Open Information Systems for the Patricia Seybold Group. The panel, Gould says, will be "comprised of leading-edge users who have implemented business solutions using distributed object technology. They will come from different industries and will talk about their objectives and the methods they used to implement distributed objects in their strategic applications.

"As people move into object-oriented technology, one of the areas receiving a lot of interest is the ability to build applications that use object-oriented technology and make use of distributed resources across a net, and can interoperate across different platforms," Gould says. "The technology is young and in some areas incomplete, and yet users are going ahead and building applications implementing them and are beginning to have excellent success. So what we want to do in the session is to find out why they chose this method of application development, what user problems they were trying to address, and something about the way they went about building their network applications."

Introduction to Distributed Computing

The attendee who is looking for the basic concepts of distributed computing would do well to sit in on the session chaired by Anne Peter titled "Introduction to Distributed Computing." Peter, who is president of Instruction Set, a technical training and consulting firm, speaks on the topic often at Fortune 500 companies, to IS managers and other senior managers who are considering distributed computing.

"I talk about some of the reasons for distributed computing," Peter says. "Those are not necessarily benefits, but some of the driving forces. I explain the different kinds of distributed computing-what different models there are for implementing a distributed computing environment. Then I usually talk about some of the building blocks of which those models are comprised-the technology and the standards. I also talk about the planning and implementation issues, and guidelines on how people can go about planning and implementing distributed systems in a commercial environment for mission-critical applications."

Other sessions in this track include "DCE," "Legacy Networks in the Open Systems Environment," "Living with Mobility," "Reliability, Availability, and Security," and "Electronic Mail in the Open Network." For further information on registering for UniForum '95, see the UniForum '95 Show Ad.