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Volume 6, Number 1________________________________________________________
January 1987
THE STATE OF THE COMPANY MEETING held on
December 4, 1986, focused on the factors that make Digital
different from the competition — our employees, our values, our
solutions approach to customers' needs, our product stratÂegies,
our networking and our services. This issue of MGMT MEMO
summarizes the speeches made at that meeting.
State
Of
The Company by Ken Olsen, president
Our
Approach
To Our Customers' Needs by Peter Smith, vice
president, Product Marketing
Our
Product
Vision Sets Us Apart by Bill Strecker, vice president,
Product Strategy and Architecture
Applications
Integration
Architecture by Roger Heinen, Corporate Consulting
Engineer
Factory
Solutions
by Dave Copeland, manager, CIM Marketing and Product
Development
The
Networking
Advantage by Bill Johnson, vice president, Distributed
Systems
Delivering
Integrated
Solutions by Bill Ferry,
manager, U.S. Software Services
Network
Services
by Don Zereski, vice president, U.S. Field Service
The goals of the corporation are: take care of
our customers, our people and our stockholders, and be honorable
and honest. After you assume those, our primary goal is survival.
There are many computer companies that have not survived IBM.
Our mission, our vision is to offer to society
open networking based on DECnet, which we see as being the answer
to the major problems of the world in the area of computing. a
Let's look at our advantages and disadvantages
in comparison to IBM. First of all, IBM is bigger in size. But
Digital is bigger in networking, particÂularly the type of
networking which we are selling.
IBM has a reputation for service and they
promote it. Digital, according to the surveys, is equal or better
in service; but we don't tell anybody. SomeÂtimes, you've got to
have a little marketing instinct, which is contrary to engineering
instinct.
IBM claims to have trouble getting engineering
projects done. Publicly,
they've said that they have too much red tape.
We've done wonders in getting people to work together to turn out
products. But, with that efficiency in developing products, we
don't have the pressure to tell the customer or the sales people
about them.
Also, both IBM and Digital do better when
scared. Over the last few years, Digital has been scared and very
productive. Now IBM is scared and mad. Unfortunately, Digital is
less scared now, but we still have reason to be scared, and we'd
better get scared.
We have to sell what we have today. We can't
stop selling what's six months old, just because six months from
now we'll have something better. We have to take every product, in
every industry, and set goals, assign people and budgets, and make
sure we sell everything we have.
Our strength is in networking — open and
elegantly simple networking. Because it is so simple, it can be
used to solve very complicated problems for customers. It can do
almost anything we ever dreamed of doing. The tasks we have before
us — of applying that capability to the needs of industry — are so
overwhelming that we can only accomplish them if we concentrate
all our corporation on this one goal.
We have the best computers, the best network,
the best components that go into networking. We have to have the
discipline to turn away from many of the new, wonderful, elegant
things that we read about in magazines which others invent and
develop. We can't do everything. I'm an engineer, and sometimes it
kills me that there are things that we could do, but that we won't
do.
But, to sell the world on open computing, we
have to stay away from those things that are just technically
fascinating and don't fit into our stratÂegy. We have to
concentrate our resources in that one area -- open network
computing. We will obviously fail if we try to do everything. We
will win if we concentrate on this one area.
Answers to audience questions:
MAP
networking
General Motors picked "MAP" as the networking
system to be used in its factories. They didn't want a proprietary
system with which they would be committed to a single vendor. They
wanted to be vendor independent. They also wanted to have
standards because they have 200 or more companies that supply them
with components.
They could have and should have used VMS and
Ethernet. But they chose to go their own way. Being
non-proprietary, MAP was specified by a committee with no
long-term interest in it. When we change DECnet, we’re careful
that everybody with previous software can play on the new changes.
Our success in Ethernet comes about because of enormous
discipline, documentation, dollars and support, and the
persistence of a large number of individuals.
There is no such dedicated support for MAP. But
as long as customers like General Motors want MAP, we'll provide
it as an alternative.
Teamwork
and organizational protocol
Over the last three years, we have worked
together very well as a team. It's beautiful and magnificent. For
instance, what we've accomplished in networking is amazing; there
are a number of leaders and they go forward when it's their turn,
and it keeps developing.
We've done more than we ever had any right to
expect. But we have to show a lot of humility to make sure we
don't lose it; that we improve it.
We've been doing well in terms of teamwork, but
there is one area of organÂizational behavior where we still get
into trouble. In our kind of organizÂation, where we believe in
peer-to-peer communications, working at problemÂsolving and
sharing work, we often neglect the formality of an organization
and its protocols.
There is a level of formality which you have to
respect or you're going to get into trouble. In today's world
where young people are not taught tradÂitional manners, they can
get into predicaments, not knowing the right thing to do. Knowing
the formalities and the protocols gives you a measure of freedom,
gives you the choice of using them or not and gets rid of a lot of
problems that can come up in an organization.
For instance, protocol says that when there’s a
problem between two vice presidents' organizations, those two vice
presidents should take care of it. Someone inside one of those
organizations shouldn't have to pull his hair t out because he has
conflicts he can't handle between vice presidents. The formality
is there, and it should be seized upon immediately when a problem
isn't solved.
Sometimes we forget formality in our love for
the beauty and efficiency of informality. But there are protocols
for resolving differences, and we should never let differences
fester.
Human society has been working together for
many years. And there are very few problems society hasn't solved.
If there's a problem in an organization, my rule of thumb is to
consider how society handles such problems. Sometimes it's
Robert's Rules of Orders. Sometimes it's a simple protocol within
an organization.
Our
Employees, Our Values Help Make Digital Different
by John
Sims, vice president, Personnel/Administration
Have you ever gone to the corner store and been
asked by the proprietor, "Where do you work?" If you were to say,
"Raytheon," "Gillette" or "Wang," chances are the proprietor would
say, "That's a good company." But when you say, "Digital", chances
are you hear, "Oh, that’s a great company." And you get a chill of
pride because you know something sets us apart from the rest, and
in that difference lies greatness and the potential to be unigue.
What is that difference? I believe it stems
from our values. Values are principles and beliefs we consider
inherently worthwhile and desirable. Values define and give
meaning to societies, organizations and people. Values hold people
together by helping to preserve the continuity and commonality of
a group. Values do, in fact, shape behavior and determine the
future and success of organizations.
We encourage all of our managers and employees
to promote honesty, loyalty, commitment, guality, efficiency and
taking responsibility. We encourage receptiveness to people and to
their ideas. We encourage simplicity and clarity in our work and
in how we express our views. We want active and willing team
members, who follow Digital's first rule, which is to do the right
thing, the honest thing, in all situations, both inside and
outside the company. These core values are the basis for our
success and our productivity.
Values -- personal or company -- are not just
words written down and tacked up on the wall. The values I refer
to are inside of us. They are gualities that tend to surface in
action. Others recognize our values by what we do and how we
behave.
So the values of the people who work at Digital
make Digital different. The people, who have skills and are
motivated, feel they have the mobility to move up and across the
organization. They feel a freedom to seize opportunÂities
presented to them and develop their own personal goals within the
parameters of company goals.
We should not take our values for granted. One
way to protect them is to continue to meet our business goals.
These values will be tested and challenged by an unpredictable and
changing business environment. It is in periods of turmoil that
our values face their sternest challenge. If busiÂness should
slip, if Big Blue should overtake us, we would need to consider
changes in the way we manage. In short, if we are not competitive,
it will be far more difficult to preserve our values and protect
our culture.
The business environment is faster paced than
ever before. This demands that we be flexible enough to rewrite
plans, reorganize structure in accordance with sudden economic and
market shifts and that we continue to become more disciplined
around cost controls. Moreover, the obsolescence of knowledge and
technology will require a continuing, lifelong re-education of our
managers and re-skilling of our employees.
In a world where new technology will
increasingly change skills requirements and may reduce staffing
requirements, we, as managers, will need to select,
train and redeploy our employees in a way that
maintains maximum employÂability of our workforce.
People are our most important asset. In a
time of crisis, our initial reaction is to protect our employees.
In the past two recessions, there came a time when we simply
needed to stop hiring people. I believe our ability to manage
those situations shows how good our
company is, far more than its present size or rate of
growth.
During those recessions, our values
regarding job security were
severely tested. While we do not guarantee full employment, we
have lived up to our commitment to manage the business in a way
that reduces the likelihood of resorting to involuntary separation of our people.
Nowhere in Digital was
this more evident than in Manufacturing, where
the changing business enviÂronment required employees to be more
flexible in learning new skills and accepting changes in
responsibility and, sometimes, in geographic location. However,
such changes in behavior are crucial in helping us preserve our
value of fully utilizing our workforce even during times of
business slowÂdown .
Digital will succeed or fail based on the
value-influenced behavior of our people. Profitability and growth
are directly affected by how well our people are developed and
utilized. Today there is a strong commitment by Personnel to help
balance the personal goals of our employees with the business
goals of Digital.
Personnel's long-range plan focuses on "valuing
differences" -- a commitment to learn to recognize and take into
account the various characteristics, behaviors and backgrounds
that distinguish people from one another. Through valuing
differences, Digital capitalizes on the synergy of a diverse work
force to reach our full potential as a company.
"Valuing differences" also means working to
attract and retain a high mix of difference in our workforce at
all levels, enabling people to tap into the strengths of people
they see as different, and helping people build relaÂtionships so
they can work together interdependently, synergistically, and
creatively.
Each of us can learn from the other, and we all
have something unique to offer this company. This perspective is
the spirit of Digital, a spirit of a commitment to hanging in and
wrestling with all the complexities of each other and the
business.
The importance of valuing differences extends
to every aspect of our busiÂness. Our products are designed with
an understanding of the different needs of our customers. Our
business goals balance the needs of customers, shareholders,
employees and the society around us. Our internal organization and
structures must reflect and respond to these needs by focusing on
resource planning, organizational design, workforce utilization
and employee development. Personnel should play a vital role in
ensuring that Digital maintain and strengthen its commitment to
valuing differences in this conÂstantly changing environment.
Digital provides customers with network
solutions now, while IBM continues to promise. And over the past
year we have consistently emphasized the theme "Digital has it
now" — in product announcements, in advertising and sales
promotion literature, and in events such as DECWorld '86 and
DECVille. And customers, consultants and even the press have begun
to pick up and reinforce that message.
IBM will catch on. It's up to us to make sure
that they don't catch up.
IBM's recent product announcements, while not
yet deliverable, boast a common computer architecture. They talk
about the importance of protecting a customer's investment in
applications and in the expertise and training of their people.
Frankly, they sound a lot like Digital’s messages. Clearly, IBM is
under severe pressure from customers to deliver high quality, high
performance networking.
Our challenge is to make sure that Digital
stays ahead, and to make sure customers understand that we can
deliver real solutions to their computing problems today.
Customers are becoming more aware of the need
to have the right information in the right place at the right time
to help them solve their critical business problems. They need to
be able to provide access to information across their
organizations. They need to incorporate change and adapt
cost-effective solutions to their business problems. But, at the
same time, they need to protect their investments in data,
applications, equipment and the training of their people.
To explain our strategy and product
capabilities to customers, consultants and the press, we've
developed a simple "S" model, which depicts the three
interconnected tiers of organization, department, and work group.
An organÂization consists of one or more departments. A department
consists of one or more work groups. And a work group consists of
a number of individuals or individual processes (such as machine
tools and controllers) that share a common set of
responsibilities. The "S" model shows the integration of these
three styles of computing.
The "S" depicts the key Digital difference from
IBM. Anyone anywhere in the organization can communicate with,
share data with, and share resources with anyone, anywhere else in
the organization, given sufficient authorization. Users
communicate with one another as peers.
At each level of the "S," a customer has
specific goals. At the organizaÂtional level, for example, the
customer is interested in the competitiveness that can come from
providing appropriate access to information, by sharing resources
across departments and work groups.
At the department level, effectiveness in
sharing information becomes the key issue. For example, an
engineering department might want to share a library of design
drawings across work groups. Or a manufacturing department might
require access to maintenance management information.
Increasing productivity is the major focus of
work groups. Much of the
information required by such a group tends to
be local. So management of that information must be simple and
appropriate to that user environment, which often means se1f-insta
11able and self-managed systems. Groups of people doing software
development, loan processing in a bank, electronic publishing or
general office functions in a marketing department would naturally
form work groups.
Only Digital is capable of providing the
complete integrated environment to cross those various
organization levels for customers -- with today's products.
So the "S" model emphasizes that the key
difference that distinguishes Digital from IBM is: peer-to-peer
computing, easy access to information and ease of growth.
Over the last several months, IBM has been
saying many of the same things that we've been saying: compatible
computing, local area networking, peer networking, and so forth.
These IBM announcements present us with an opportunity and a
problem. The opportunity is that IBM has effectively acknowledged
that our strategy is the right one. By tailoring their strategy
after ours, IBM is effectively admitting that Digital is providing
leadership in the information systems industry.
The problem is that now it takes more than
words to tell us and IBM apart. We need to look behind the words
to understand the real difference in our approaches.
Ken Olsen stated our mission in the President's
Letter in the Annual Report. "Our goal is to connect all parts of
an organization — the office, the factory floor, the laboratory,
the engineering department -- from the desktop to the data center.
We can connect everything within a building; we can connect a
group of buildings on the same site or at remote sites; we can
connect an entire organization around the world. We propose to
connect a company from top to bottom with a single network that
includes the shipping clerk, the secretary, the manager, the vice
president, even the president.
"The difficulty of our mission goes beyond the
technical challenges inÂvolved. Change also becomes an important
factor. Progressive companies analyze their organizations,
understand their goals, and then completely change the way they
run their business in order to make them more compeÂtitive and
more effective in pursuing their goals."
We believe that computing resources should be
concentrated at the department and the work group levels. In
contrast, IBM believes that the resources should be concentrated
at the organizational level and at the individual level in an
essentially uncoupled way. Also, we believe that communication
should occur directly, and not up and down a
formal hierarchy. IBM’s approach is a formal hierarchy.
Our product strategy consists of five elements:
o commitment to a single, simple, elegant,
native system architecture;
o a family of products, from the desktop to the
data center, that are built to this architecture;
o comprehensive networking;
o an applications integration architecture,
which enables multiple applications to be brought together to
communicate and to work together with a common human interface;
and
o the integration of other key computing system
architectures to preserve the investments that customers have made
in other information systems.
Architecture
Information systems are extremely complex and
are driven by constantly changing technology. To deal with
complexity and changing technology, it's necessary to break the
system into lots of pieces and establish stable, well-defined
interfaces between those pieces. Such an approach is known as an
"architecture."
The choice of architecture ultimately embodies
the philosophy and the capabilities of an information processing
system. In other words, there are good and poor choices of
architecture. A good one will be long-lived, will make it easy to
manage complexity and deal with change.
The first element of our strategy is to have a
common, native system archiÂtecture. This approach enables the
movement of data and applications across the organizational and
departmental and work group computing levels. Often an
organization will develop an application for use at one level and
want to move that application or data from it to another level.
Architectural comÂpatibility provides the ability to do that
movement easily and also permits the integration of applications.
Applications that are written to the same
architecture work together better than applications that are
written to different architectures. It also makes it easier to
build distributed applications. In addition, compatibility helps
preserve hardware, software and training investments, for Digital
as well as the customer.
Our architecture consists of six layers:
o hardware -- VAX;
o communications — DECnet;
o operating system — VMS;
o data management -- VIA (VAX Information
Architecture);
o application integration — ALL-IN-1; and
o individual applications, which are developed
by Digital, third parties.
customers and
The VAX hardware architecture extends from the
desktop to the data center. No other architecture is so broadly
and consistently implemented. From the very beginning it has
included a large virtual address space, and all the software
written for the VAX hardware architecture supports that large
virtual address space. Many other computing architectures have
evolved from simpler structures, and in many cases the software
does not fully support the capabilities of those architectures.
The DECnet communications architecture allows
any system to connect directly and to talk to any other system on
a peer-to-peer basis. DECnet is "media independent" — that is,
it's not keyed to any particular transmission media because the
technology of transmission media is evolving very rapidly. In
contrast, IBM's SNA communications architecture has a substantial
media dependence, and integrating local area networking requires
an entire reÂstructuring of SNA. Our media independence supports
local area networking as well as circuit and packet-switch wide
area networking.
Another important element of our network
architecture is simple network management. We have the ability to
build very large networks and manage them very simply and
elegantly. For example, our internal network now has about 15,000
nodes, and we add hundreds of nodes every week without taking the
network down and without disrupting the operation of the network.
Our operating system architecture, VMS,
supports timesharing, batch, transÂaction, and single-user
workstation modes all with a single operating system. No other
vendor can make that claim. They commonly provide different
operating systems for their workstations, their transaction
systems, their batch systems and so forth. We provide just one.
And VMS is fully integrated with our networking, allowing one VMS
system to transparently use the files and devices on another VMS
system. Another element of VMS is our cluster technology — the
most advanced distributed operating system technology in the
industry today. Clusters provide a common cluster-wide file
system, common cluster-wide resource queues, and common
cluster-wide system management. They also provide on-line
reconfiguration — the ability to add elements to a cluster and
take them away, either because of a fault or repair or extension,
without bringing the cluster down.
Our data management architecture supports both
of the common data models (CODASYL and relational), and we provide
a common data dictionary for both. For these data models we
provide distributed application access and distribÂuted end-user
access.
Our ALL-IN-1 application integration
architecture enables Digital and third-party applications to work
together, to exchange data, and to provide a common human
interface.
Family
of Products
The second major element of our strategy is the
broad implementation of our architecture in products. Our VAX
family includes systems for medium and large-scale computing,
MicroVAX system for our small-scale computing and VAXstations for
our personal computing. These members can be combined together
with our clusters to make larger distributed computing structures.
The recently introduced Local Area VAXcluster technology links all
members
of the family, and high-end VAXcluster
technology links the medium and large-scale members of our family.
Why is VAXcluster technology so significant? A
customer who wants a high- end, high-performance computing
environment considers three main factors: performance,
extensibility (to meet changing requirements) and availability.
VAXcluster technology addresses all three of those needs.
Networking
The third element of our strategy includes both
wide-area and local-area networking. We support international
standards for multi-vendor computer networking. Eventually one
will see a company's computer systems linked to those of its
suppliers and customers. Since you cannot determine the kind of
networking architecture that your supplier has or your customer
has, it's essential that everyone agree to a common definition of
networking. To realize the vision of networking which extends
beyond a single organization to that organization's customers and
suppliers, international standard networking is required.
We also emphasize local area networks as the
basis for building extended computer systems. The fundamental
physical technology we use for local area networking is Ethernet
-- a mature, proven technology supported by multiple vendors. We
support Ethernet across all of our products. It provides the
performance level, at 10 Megabits per second, which is essential
for us to realize our vision for work-group computing.
We offer a wide range of Ethernet media:
traditional, thick-wire Ethernet, thinwire, fiber optics, baseband
and broadband. Basically, Ethernet netÂworking protocols can
support any reasonable transmission medium.
We believe communications has moved out of the
individual machines and onto the local area network. So for
Ethernet, we have a complete set of servers: terminal servers,
print servers, routers, gateways and so forth. In other words,
today we can build a complete communications environment with
Ethernet.
Applications
Integration
Architecture
The fourth element of our strategy is our
applications integration archiÂtecture, which makes it easy to
write and deploy multiple applications that work together, that
share data, and enjoy a common human interface. We want to make
Digital systems the preferred platform for external application
writers.
Integration
with Other Vendors' Architectures
The fifth element of our strategy is
integration of other key computing system architectures. We have
become such a substantial factor in the information systems
business that we now need to pay attention to the other computer
architectures that our customers already have installed.
We're paying particular attention to three
architectures:
o MS-DOS, because of its significance in the
personal computer arena;
o UNIX or ULTRIX because of its importance in
the technical workstation arena; and
o IBM architectures because of their importance
in storing corporate or organizational data.
When integrating other computing architectures
into our architecture, we try to find points in our layers where
we can join them with analogous layers in the other systems. For
instance, when we linked VAX/VMS with MS-DOS, we provided a full
implementation of DECnet so an MS-DOS machine is now every bit as
much a DECnet node as a VMS system is. We also provided linkages
at the operating system level so MS-DOS systems can gain access to
files on VMS systems. In addition, we provided linkage at the
application integration level. So with PC ALL-IN-1, we have a
distributed system where the approÂpriate parts run on VMS and
other parts run on MS-DOS. For example, the file cabinet resides
on the VMS system, and the word processor resides on the MS-DOS
machine. This is a true distributed computing solution with
heterogeneous architectures, where each architecture plays an
appropriate role.
For ULTRIX we also provide a full
implementation of DECnet and linkages at the file system level so
we can access files from VMS and ULTRIX. And eventually, with the
fruition of our application integration architecture, we will have
linkages at the application integration level as well.
The integration with IBM presents a few
interesting problems. First, it's very difficult to find analogous
layers on the IBM side to match up with our side. And secondly,
the IBM side is not one architecture but in fact four or five
different architectures. So we have taken a different approach --
putting an element between the IBM system and the VMS system
called an "IBM gateway." Basically, the gateway makes an IBM
network look like a DECnet network to the Digital side, and makes
the Digital side look like an IBM network to the IBM side. By
doing this, we have the unique capability of joining an IBM
network to a DECnet network.
In summary, three factors make us different
from IBM.
o our goal to change significantly the way
customers do business through networking and computing;
o our style of computing, with its emphasis on
departments and work groups and peer-to-peer networking; and
o our product strategy, which stresses common
architecture from the desktop to the data center, networking and
distributed computing, applications integration, and integration
of other key computing systems.
We' ve structured our product strategy around
several simple architectures and a pervasively interconnected
computing system. This combination can be adapted in an infinite
number of ways to solve an infinite number of probÂlems. Our
strategy is to combine our proprietary architectures with some
industry-standard architectures. That's our key unigue difference:
We can offer tremendous flexibility for how and where to run
applications. But with this flexibility comes the problem of
making all the products we sell work together no matter how
they're tailored.
We need a simple way to add application value
to our systems. This is what the Applications Integration
Architecture is all about.
Customers determine what the best applications
are and what the best appliÂcations integration environment is.
They vote with their wallets.
Basically, five factors influence their
decisions:
o a rich run-time environment,
o a simple architectural description of that
environment,
o a set of integrated core applications and
development tools,
o a program to exploit that technology, and
o a good climate in which to do business.
The run-time environment includes not only the
operating system, but also networking and combining many different
operating systems into one computing environment. We have to
consider applications integration in the context of distributed
computing. Our run-time environment includes VMS at the core, with
ULTRIX, ELN and MS-DOS as additional integrated environments in
their own right. This combination is unique in the industry and
gives us a $ distinct advantage.
But how much of an advantage? From the
perspective of a customer, this tremendous number of choices and
flexibility could represent not an asset but rather a puzzle too
complex to solve. We need to explain the richness of our offerings
in a simpler way, smoothing out the technical difficulties and
rough edges. We need a stable application integration architecture
to help us do that. We need a program that shows how our
technology helps to build application solutions.
One facet of that program is to actually supply
applications, through Engineering, Software Services, Cooperative
Marketing Partners, Application Marketing Groups and so on. Even
the customer's own development shop can be a source of
applications. If we learn to depend on an architecture to do this,
we will then provide a seamless computing environment for
customers.
And let's not forget that if we want people to
help us solve customer problems , we have to keep the door open
for them and help them succeed in business, with beneficial
cooperative arrangements and programs. We want our partners to
know that they are valued. We must remember that they are more
important to us than we are to them.
What is our Applications Integration
Architecture going to look like? As with our other architectures,
it is written in a book; but unlike the detail of a VAX system
reference manual, this is a Guidebook of stvle. a honk advice. It
explains how best to design and construct applications for
Digital's computers that are as well integrated into that
environment as the applications that come directly from Digital.
It explains the style and folklore for designing applications that
take advantage of our network and desktop strategies, and our
strategy to have VMS, ULTRIX, and MS-DOS in the same computing
environment. It is just a simple explanation of who does what and
how.
This is not a description of a new operating
system. It's not an attempt to respecify every application
interface. It's an attempt to simplify the puzzle that we present
to the application designers.
In other words, the architecture provides:
o advice on how to design an application,
o a description of tools Digital offers to help
do that, and
o a description of supplies that Digital offers
that the tools can use.
The applications environment is rooted in how
applications exchange data and what that data means. The goal is
that users see a seamless, consistent set of applications when
they use the system.
The goal of the Applications Integration
Architecture will be to assure that the various implementations of
the components are designed from the same goals and represent
stable forms of the same principles. The potential for multiple
implementations is important to plan for from the beginning.
AlÂthough today the architecture is primarily oriented to
improving VMS, some of the elements of the architecture will carry
into the other environments. For example, we need a common model
for a user interface for PCs and workÂstations. But we also need a
common model for printing, for data access, for systems management
and so forth.
The architecture is all embodied in software
and documentation. These softÂware components make up our standard
kit for adding value to our system. The description of this kit
explains each element in detail -- the run-time environment, the
development tools and core application, how to apply networking
technology to distribute applications and how these elements
interrelate to form a seamless computing environment.
The Systems Software Group plans to use this
architecture as a guide for developing that rich run-time
environment, those applications development tools, and those core
applications. They also plan to use it as a guide for dealing with
other groups when consulting on technical matters and strategy.
The Applications Marketing Groups can translate
this architecture for their markets and use it as a guide to help
add value to the underlying components that other groups supply.
Software Services will use the document similarly, as a framework
to construct customer-specific solutions. And the archÂitecture
can be used outside the company, by customers and Cooperative
MarÂketing Partners, to design very specific solutions.
Finally, by publicizing the architecture, we
can make it a sales tool
showing our commitment to the application
designer and emphasizing that we make it easy and profitable to
add value to our systems.
No other company has done this. And I doubt
whether any other company can do this. We can because we already
operate under strict architectural guidelines. This is just the
next step.
For Digital, Transaction Processing is a new
kind of business, a new style of computing; a new game with a
slightly different set of rules. We have to be flexible, open to
learning, and willing to adjust as we go down the path.
We can define Transaction Processsing in
technical terms or in terms of system attributes or markets.
First, it's a model for building a class of
applications organized around work units called "transactions," in
which the result is a change in the state of a database.
Transactions are sets of operations on system resources which
adhere to the properties of atomicity, consistency, isolation, and
durability.
Atomicity means that a transaction is an
all-or-none operation. For example, the updates to a database from
a transaction are completely done or completely omitted. Your
account balance at the bank is either all updated or it's not.
Consistency means that a transaction only makes
valid changes in the state of the data. For example, a transaction
cannot violate shared updating rules .
Isolation means that the effects of a
transaction are not publicly visible until the transaction has
been successfully completed. For example, checks are not issued
until a transaction has successfully completed.
Durability means that the effects of a
transaction survive failures in the environment. In other words,
transactions are never lost or erroneously duplicated. Two
withdrawals of a thousand dollars from your account are not
acceptable when you’ve only made one.
Transaction processing systems typically make
heavy use of disks because the applications require constant
access to the database. Often the data entry for a transaction or
the selection of a transaction is accomplished from a terminal.
Consequently, it is important to efficiently manage large terminal
populations.
Since many transaction processing systems deal
with the heart of a company's business, there are very stringent
security constraints. For example, the
execution of a particular transaction may be
restricted to a selected group of individuals on particular
terminals during certain times of the day.
Transaction processing systems require fast
response time for individual transactions, and high throughput
rates across transactions. Response time is the speed in getting a
response to the terminal. Throughput rate refers to the speed in
changing the state of the database.
Many transaction processing systems today must
be able to handle 10 to 30 transactions a second, with a response
time to the user of one second. In other words, the user enters
the data, the system goes through all its machinations, updates
the database, and responds to the user in one second. That's a
stringent requirement in many applications.
Transaction processing systems can be found in
many different industries, in particular, financial services,
telecommunications and manufacturing. For example, in retail
banking the transaction might be a deposit or a withÂdrawal
through an automatic teller machine. Or in airline reservations,
the transaction might be the acquisition of a seat on a particular
flight. In fact, most of us interact with transaction processing
systems often in our everyday lives.
Why is transaction processing important to
Digital? It's a large and growing market -- about $20 to $40
billion, depending on how you measure it, and growing faster than
the industry as a whole. This rapid growth is due to two factors:
o transaction processing is a desirable
environment on which to build data-intensive applications; and
o vendors have introduced hardware and software
building blocks -- like VAXclusters, relational databases and
local area networks — which facilitate the development of these
systems.
Transaction processing provides powerful
techniques for reliable distributed processing. We can use these
techniques to increase our superiority in the distributed style of
computing, especially exploiting our networking capÂability .
Digital's hardware and software provides a good
foundation for transaction processing systems. For example, the
VAX 8000 series of processors (in particular, VAX 8500 systems and
up), VAXclusters, relational databases, and transaction monitoring
software make good building blocks for such systems. Customers
have already built significant transaction processing systems with
our technology. For example, the largest money transfer system in
the U.S. was built by Citibank using Digital products. Such
systems must be supported and our products continually enhanced.
Finally, we can use transaction processing to
win against IBM. Although IBM has a very large part of the
transaction processing market, its solutions are not particularly
effective or efficient. Also, IBM has not been a leader in support
for international standards which are emerging today. In fact, its
architecture(s) may complicate support for these standards. We can
provide customers with more flexible, convenient, and efficient
building
blocks for transaction processing than IBM. We
also provide the best interÂconnect to IBM systems.
We are developing an architecture which will
ensure that all the logical components in the transaction
processing environment work together effectÂively and efficiently.
The Applications Integration Architecture (see Roger Heinen's
article), is an important part of this effort. We are also
actively involved in the emerging international standards
activities for distributed transaction processing.
What needs to be done? Transaction processing
systems are inherently complex. Customers need a set of
computer-aided software engineering tools to design and build
transaction processing systems. These tools permit cusÂtomers to
design systems with predictable performance and effectively use
Digital technology. Someday these tools will eliminate the tedious
proÂgramming now reguired to build transaction processing systems.
And for today, such tools are needed to help in running tests for
potential cusÂtomers to prove the performance of a system,
demonstrating that it can handle the required number of users.
Distributed database technology is becoming
more of a requirement for transaction processing systems.
Distributed databases remove much of the complexity of integrating
several processing sites. We need a strong, partitioned,
replicated, distributed database offering to enhance our
distributed processing technology.
Finally, we need to address customer
fault-tolerance requirements. Fault tolerance is the ability of a
system to automatically tolerate the presence of a fault and to
continue an operation with full integrity and service. The faults
might be due to hardware, software or human error. It is
particularly important to prevent a system outage that would cause
a transaction to be lost. Some transaction feeds cannot be re-sent
because the sender is either unwilling or unable to re-send it.
For example, stock quotations are typiÂcally not re-sent to
brokerage houses. Emergency telecommunications systems must be
available to accept calls at all times — the caller probably isn't
going to have an opportunity to call again. And real-time devices
may not have sufficient time to re-send transaction data. Our
current products, such as VAXclusters, can meet fault-tolerance
requirements in many cases. But more work needs to be done in this
area.
Continuous operation, which is also very
desirable for a transaction proÂcessing system, requires solutions
to problems such as back-ups, software maintenance, and hardware
maintenance. You have to be able to maintain the system while it
is running.
How will we win? A solid architecture for our
transaction processing envirÂonment will accommodate
state-of-the-art distributed transaction processing and ensure
effective integration of components. Our engineering efforts are
focusing on product integration and performance. We are challenged
to build products which emphasize performance as much as function.
We are challenged to provide bridges from our existing products to
the next generation of products .
Success in transaction processing involves a
lot more than superior engineering. We must carefully select the
markets we wish to pursue. We must package our products to
minimize the complexity to the customer, taking advantage of our
architecture and our applications environment. We must continue to
work with leading-edge customers to help them succeed as we learn.
And in the Field, we will continue to provide excellent support
for both hardware and software.
Over 20 percent of Digital's revenues come from
the engineering market. We've been very successful there, and
we've competed very effectively against IBM.
These customers are leading the demand for
integrated solutions to critical engineering productivity,
communications, and data management problems. They are looking for
solutions — for a computing environment, not just products. And
that's what we provide.
Today's engineering environment is enormously
complex. It includes multiple, interdependent functions that must
be allowed to work together in a consistent systems and
information environment. TRW, for example, has put out a request
for proposals for an integrated solution for their space vehicle
program. That solution has to provide office automation, computer-
aided design and analysis tools for mechanical and electrical
engineering, technical documentation, consistent data management,
project management, and communications across all these
applications. They have to manage 9,000 files and provide support
to over 700 users. They have to integrate a mixed bag of
terminals, PCs, workstations, minicomputers, and mainframes from
companies like Sun, Apple, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Digital, with
nine different communication protocols.
The Lighting Division of General Electric
needed a solution to maintain quality control in an environment
with relatively few engineers. They wanted to be able to quickly
and easily check products to see if they were up to specification
by using information accumulated during the engineering process.
Design, documentation, testing, simulation, and manufacturing
processes all accumulated data that they wanted to match against
today's production. But all of that information was created using
different appliÂcation software running on different vendors'
systems. The question is, how do we tie all of that together and
make information accessible in a usable fashion?
In other words, engineering customers are
looking for a new, higher-level, more integrated solution than was
required or possible in the past.
Over the last 20 years, customers in the
engineering market often bought isolated, point solutions, which
did not work together. Each tool had its own separate user
interface and data formats; so information sharing was, at best,
extremely frustrating. Critical product information was often
fragÂmentary, partially incorrect and behind in revision level.
Today, customers are designing much more
complicated products than before, making it more difficult than
ever for them to produce quality products on time and within
budget. More complicated products lead to much more
sophÂisticated, complex engineering processes. Large amounts of
information are created at each step, and the documentation
requirements are horrendous. There are many feedback loops, which
result in a stream of ever-changing information, and they need to
effectively and efficiently communicate these changes to all
participants — engineers, technicians and support staff — as well
as to such organizations as manufacturing, purchasing, finance,
marketing, and often to their vendors and customers.
Fortunately, our VAX computer family and
leadership in networks put us in a good position to solve the
problems these companies now face.
What is a complete solution for an engineering
customer? For an OEM, it may be a chip or a board, and perhaps an
operating system. For an end user, it is a complete system of
hardware, software, a variety of integrated applicaÂtions and
support services, and a network. Digital can build engineering
computing solutions at any level of integration required by the
engineering customer today. We have integrated products and
services today to help our customers tie together their computing
systems into one seamless computing environment. And our
Cooperative Marketing Partners provide a wide range of
high-quality applications that have been thoroughly tested and
optimized for the customer's environment. We have over 70
Cooperative Marketing Partners in the engineering market alone.
Solution systems are templates of
pre-configured, tested systems which help in problem-solving
dialogues between sales reps and customers. They provide a way to
explain and package technology which makes it easier for
Marketing, Sales, Sales Support, Software Services and customers
to understand. Solution systems also provide a way for Digital to
identify missing pieces and complete the solution by feeding the
information back to engineering.
Our generic model of a solution system, aimed
at the work group, deals with sharing files, applications and
resources. It emphasizes easy access to the corporate network and
an effective systems management capability for the work group,
including load balancing.
Now we don't expect to sell a lot of solution
systems exactly as we conÂfigure them. But we do expect them to
become an easy way to understand how work group computing problems
can be solved, and provide a simple way to configure the solution
most appropriate for the customer.
Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is a
vision of integrating the flow of information across an entire
enterprise, including factory floor, front office, engineering and
even customers and suppliers.
Increasingly, companies are viewing
manufacturing processes — including people, methodology and
eguipment — not just in terms of cost, but rather as resources to
be managed as a system. Turning this system into a comÂpetitive
advantage requires the ability to respond quickly to market
changes. For example, in the auto industry, an engine plant that
is flexible enough to produce both four-, six- and eight-cylinder
engines can replace three separate engine plants and allow
production to be responsive to fluctuating customer demand and
energy prices. The effective utilization of production resources,
rapid time to market, customer satisfaction and continued quality
improvement all depend on effective management of inforÂmation
throughout the enterprise.
Of course , automation in and of itself is not
a means to gain competitive advantage. Innovations in management
practice, organizational change and planning are essential to
success. These, combined with technology in the form of computing
systems, are the answer. And in a factory, computing systems
include networks because the factory is, by nature, a distributed
processing environment.
The market for computers in manufacturing is
about $12 billion and growing at the rate of 15 to 18% a year,
while the general computer market is growing at about 12%. Many of
the companies that are leading the way in integrating their
manufacturing operations are our customers. Some have heard our
message and agree with it. And we need to work hard to convince
the rest.
Over the past several years, we've increased
our market share in the reÂsource management segment (often
referred to as "MRP") at the expense of IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
We've accomplished this based on the strength of applications from
our Cooperative Marketing Partners, and our high-end VAX systems
and networking.
For example, five years ago, Alcoa did $500,000
of business with Digital. Today they're doing in excess of $10
million. And most recently, they placed an order for $4 million
for the first phase of a corporate CIM program.
The manufacturing customer is looking for an
architecture and a style of computing that inherently supports
networks and distributed processing — areas of Digital's greatest
strength. So the manufacturing market presents a tremendous
opportunity to Digital. We are viewed as the market leader by many
users and partners. We are viewed as a necessary and desirable
ally by all but our direct competitors.
The manufacturing environment is a multi-vendor
environment. No one vendor will ever be able to offer all of the
products and services needed by the CIM user. This is true because
the factory system consists of many pieces, from machine tools and
valves to computer systems. Because of the diversity of products
used in the factory, there will always be a collection of
emÂbedded and tag-along computer products from Intel, Motorola,
IBM, Hewlett-
Packard and others. This means that from a
practical standpoint, we must support a multi-vendor computing
environment in the factory. Our dream, however, is to have the VAX
architecture as the factory computing system of choice.
Each of our customers has different needs and
approaches in manufacturing. Some plants prefer controls from
Allen-Bradley, others from Fisher Controls, and some might prefer
Siemens or Honeywell or one of 30 other vendors. The same
diversity is true of process control systems, machine tools,
robots and even applications. The manufacturing customer is used
to a large menu of choice. Our vision is to work in partnership
with strategic CIM vendors who will play a significant role in the
factory of tomorrow.
It's important to value the contributions of
our partners; in this market, we can't do it without them. Our
vision is based on teamwork striving toward providing
comprehensive solutions for customers.
If the dominant architecture in the factory is
VAX, imagine the improved possibilities for Software Services to
provide a level of information integration among the various
VAX-based platforms and third-party appliÂcations. This is the
kind of integration our customers need. Bringing CSS into the
vision allows us to tackle the hardware and I/O interconnects
necessary in the factory. Add to this a Field Service program
tailored to the factory, and you have an exciting vision.
Networks are the foundation for sharing, for
accessing, for processing and for distributing information. We are
by far the leader in the local-area network market, as
acknowledged by the press, competitive analysts and our
competitors. IBM is our nearest competitor.
We have 75,000 DECnet license holders as
compared to just 22,000 for IBM's SNA. There are 115,000 Ethernet
connections and 8,000 Ethernet customer locations. We are shipping
6,500 Ethernet terminal ports a week. That's about 1,300 a day.
Most corporate DECnet networks extend beyond
one building or site to cover an average of 11 sites for any given
DECnet network. About 33% of our networks remain in the same
building; 22% are in the same city or state; 28% are contained in
one country; and 17% extend beyond a single country.
The image of Digital as a technically oriented
company has changed over the last few years as we've started to
provide customers with integrating applications at the network
level. The top five applications of Digital networks today are in
office, financial services, engineering, manufacturing and
personnel.
DECnet user satisfaction is very high. In a
recent survey, 68% of corporate DECnet users were very satisfied
as opposed to only 47% of those who were SNA users.
Digital came out with its networking
architecture, DNA, in 1975, the same year that IBM introduced its
SNA. Digital's network architecture focuses on connecting
processors to processors. This approach allows for peer-to-peer
communication. That is, you can count on intelligence being at
each one of the nodes. In contrast, IBM’s SNA concentrates on
connecting dumb terminals through some control mechanism to
processors.
All future networking will be based on the
ability of one computer to exchange information with another
computer as equals. Digital has this down to a science, while IBM
is still trying to connect the parts. Sending mail and messages
between systems is an example of one of the services that a user
would like to see on a network and that we all take for granted
within Digital. You would like any system to communicate with any
other system. IBM has a lot of work to do before their computers
can really communicate easily with each other. Digital has this
capability today across our whole product line. It doesn't matter
what Digital product you have now or what Digital product you're
going to buy in the future, the people using them can send mail
between any node that we offer on our network.
IBM is looking toward the future, too. In
discussions at industry standards bodies it has become apparent
that they want to look like, act like and sound like Digital in
the networking space. Of course, imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery, but they're awfully big, awfully aggressive, and,
right now, they’re mad.
Digital's networking future lies in taking
networking far beyond the wire. Specifically, that future lies in
multi-vendor networks where Digital computers and other computers
can communicate and exchange information. We need to work on
managing these multi-vendor networks and providing efficient
transaction processing for the business environment, which is
really IBM's forte. We have to integrate this technology and
systems capability more into our wide-area communications
environments. All in all, Digital must show customers that we not
only can provide hardware, software and service expertise, but
also that we can be be their long-term business partner.
Our customers must maximize their customers'
satisfaction. Our customers must reduce their time to market with
new products and increase their productivity. Doing so is critical
to their success, even to their survival. Our customers must be
internationally competitive. And helping them to achieve this goal
is a major opportunity for Digital. The key is getting involved in
a customer's business, demonstrating a clear understanding and
appreciation for the problems to be solved and presenting a
deliverable solution.
Major customers like Ford Motor Company,
Caterpillar Tractor and MCI are looking for automation partners —
one or two primary system vendors who can connect their systems
together and make them useful. They expect a broad range of
consulting and services from their partners, and they're looking
for a partner who can integrate systems, not only technically but
also with their business operations.
We've developed a planning model to help ensure
that we're prepared to meet our customers' challenges to deliver
integrated solutions. We refer to it as a "solutions life cycle."
It's a guide to developing the resources, service capabilities and
methodologies required to build and deliver a seamless family of
services.
Software Services, teamed with the other Field
organizations, builds speÂcialized expertise in focused industry
and applications centers. We demonÂstrate our systems capabilities
and implement a disciplined project methodÂology. We have
customized training and management plans, as needed. We have
strategic resources and capabilities. We have 3,500 professionals
in the Software Services organization. Educational Services
provides training through 14 centers that have a comprehensive
curriculum. And through custom manufacturing centers, CSS provides
specialized hardware that customers need, such as ruggedized
equipment for the shop floor.
To improve our ability to sell Digital
solutions, we are building ApplicaÂtions Centers for Technology.
These centers were born out of successes in places such as
Detroit, Michigan, where we have worked very closely and
successfully with automotive customers. They are designed to
showcase Digital's solutions capabilities, demonstrating our
applications, systems and networking expertise. We now have seven
Application Centers for TechÂnology in the U.S. By the end of Q3
we’ll have 13, and by mid-Q4 17. These centers will be networked
worldwide so they can demonstrate our global communications-based
solutions capabilities.
To implement solutions after they've been sold,
we’re organizing our most experienced and specialized people in
focused industry, application- and technology-based Resource
Centers. Strategic Resource Teams will be estabÂlished in each
area across the U.S., and we'll soon expand elsewhere in the
world. Our current teams have mainly resulted from major
applications projects with corporate accounts. For instance, we
have three Manufacturing Resource Centers, located in Detroit,
Michigan; Santa Clara, California; and Enfield, Connecticut. They
house our most senior and most experienced people in the factory
automation arena. They respond to major opportunities across the
United States and around the world. They're linked to Marketing
and also to Digital's Manufacturing organization so we can take
full advantage of our in-house experience at using our products.
In Washington, D.C., we have a
Telecommunications and Messaging Resource Center. This center,
which resulted from our experience in working with MCI, has
already been instrumental in winning a multi-million-dollar
communiÂcations project in California.
Our experience in working with General
Electric's Lighting Business Division shows the range of our
capabilities. The opportunity started in a light bulb
manufacturing plant in Cleveland, Ohio. G.E. needed to maintain
quality leadership and at the same time reduce manufacturing
costs. We recommended a VAX-based statistical process control
system and used prototyping techniques to demonstrate our
capabilities. These techniques not only shortened the sales cycle,
but also shortened the customer’s development cycle. After the
initial product was developed the prototypes were used to build a
phased implementation plan that ensured success of the project.
During the design and development phase, with
in-field design implementaÂtion, training and service, we built a
system that met the needs of our customer. It was easy to use and
was easy to integrate into the daily operation of their
manufacturing plant. The next task was inventory manageÂment, then
capacity utilization and productivity analysis applications — all
components of quality and profit improvement. The solution was
then implemented in 19 manufacturing sites. All were networked
together so that quality data and general information about
progress in the manufacturing process was shared regularly by the
people on the shop floor and manufacÂturing engineers.
Soon G.E. started to see an increase in the
rate at which quality was improved and costs were reduced. Before
we finished implementing the 19th system, G.E. told us that the
system had already paid for itself.
The G.E. plant in Cleveland was originally
threatened with closure because of its cost problems. Today it's a
profitable enterprise. And, the partÂnership continues. Field
Service supports the systems. Ed Services provides ongoing
training. Software Services provides a full-time consultant, who
is now a permanent member of their design research team, ensuring
that their research is utilizing our technology. All in all, our
people do make a difference.
Many customers today’are unsure of how to
implement their network visions. This is largely due to the
confusing array of networking vendors offering multiple
technologies.
So Digital offers a complete portfolio of
network services intended to cover the life cycle of an entire
network, including planning, implementing and operating a network.
This portfolio includes services designed to help customers manage
the increasing complexity of multi-technology, multi-vendor and
multi-national networks. We're one of the few companies that can
provide total network services across the globe.
For example, Federated Investors in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, needed a total service solution from a single
vendor. They were moving into a new building and wanted the most
state-of-the-art network right away. They wanted to know that when
the building was completed it would be totally wired and they’d
have the ability to move or add terminals throughout the complete
facility in less than 30 minutes. We provided them with a total
solution: hardware, software, network design, installation
management, documentation and the network certification. They now
have 350 terminals operating and plan to go to over 1,000
terminals at that one facility.
Digital's approach is to provide our customers
with a full range of services -- from Field Service, Software
Services and Educational Services -- that collectively address the
needs of customers.
During the planning phase, it’s critical that
the customer selects the proper hardware and software network
configuration. So we offer network physical design, design
consulting and a complete package. Our network consultants conduct
a site survey, then develop a comprehensive design for the entire
network. The design serves as the basis for generating a
comÂprehensive installation plan with schedules and cost
information, including quotations from our vendors and
subcontractors. (We use a number subconÂtractors to install the
cabling.)
Once the network is designed, our network
consultants ensure that it fully meets our customers' needs, and
that potential installation problems are minimized. Our customized
network installation service ensures the proper physical
installation of the network and then certifies the complete
network operation.
Essentially, Field Service manages all the
installation activities to ensure that they are smooth, timely and
well coordinated. Upon completion of inÂstallation, we conduct
network acceptance testing of both the cable installÂation and the
associated communication equipment. Finally, the entire network is
functionally tested as a system, in conjunction with Software
Services.
We also provide a network certification service
for broadband networks to ensure successful product connectivity
and to qualify customers’ networks for on-site maintenance
agreements. We ensure that our customers' networks meet or exceed
all of the original design specifications.
For example, General Electric wanted to develop
an intricate network conÂnecting its VAXs to programmable
controllers which could be used to control production in a new
manufacturing plant. We designed, installed and tested a
state-of-the-art broadband network. G.E.'s new compressor
manufacturing facility in Columbia, Tennessee, is now complete;
and we’re proud to say it's one of the most advanced networked,
automated manufacturing facilities in the world. The finished
network consists of 1.4 miles of cable with 195 separate caps to
process controllers. Our part of the project spanned seven months
and included the detailed network design, subcontractor
management, installation and cable plant certification.
General Electric's aircraft business wanted a
specific automation plan for its engine plant in Ferndale, Ohio.
This is a highly complex project reÂquiring a detailed network
design and installation plan. The total project took us only five
weeks, including the installation and testing of more than a mile
of coaxial cable, two miles of transceiver drop cables and 50
H-4000 transceivers. Not only was the project complex, but 95% of
the time we had to work 20 feet off the ground in order to
complete the installation around the plant floor without
disrupting ongoing production.
The last phase of the network life cycle is the
operation phase. During this phase, Digital service organizations
provide total hardware, software, and educational support. Field
Service offerings include ongoing maintenance services, network
monitoring and management tools, and network maintenance
management services.
We know from recent market research that almost
all networks created today consist of products from more than one
vendor and that over 50% of all network customers have networks
incorporating products from five or more vendors. So to help meet
our customers' diversified needs, within certain guidelines, we
will maintain equipment manufactured by other vendors. We now
support more than 175 different products manufactured by some 50
other vendors.
The Port Authority of New York provides an
excellent example of our multiÂvendor service capabilities. This
huge and diversified enterprise was faced with the problem of
multi-vendor data processing equipment that couldn't communicate
with one another. We came up with a solution. As a result, we’re
currently wiring 17 floors of the World Trade Center. The
long-term Port Authority vision is to have a wide-area network
covering a 25-mile radius from the World Trade Center. This
network will connect all the airports, maritime terminals,
administrative offices, tunnels and bridges.
We recently extended our commitment to
developing service solutions for multi-technology, multi-vendor
customers by introducing our network mainÂtenance management
services. We are not going to do all of the network maintenance
ourselves — we will manage the process through subcontractors --
but customers will have a single point of contact to resolve all
of their network needs.
As part of this program, we're using our remote
diagnostic capabilities and Customer Support Centers. These
centers perform fault isolation and fault identification. They
also provide post-service verification to ensure that each repair
is effective and that network availability has been restored. They
operate worldwide on a 24-hour basis, 365 days a year.
* SNA, IBM, and IBM PC are trademarks of
International Business Machines, Inc. MS-DOS is a trademark of
Microsoft Corp.