[Info-vax] DECnet use in today's world, was: Re: Tangent about DECnet versions.

[Kerry Main]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Info-vax <info-vax-bounces at rbnsn.com> On Behalf Of gsumnr--- via
> Info-vax
> Sent: August 3, 2018 1:06 PM
> To: info-vax at rbnsn.com
> Cc: gsumnr at gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Info-vax] DECnet use in today's world, was: Re: Tangent
about
> DECnet versions.
> 
> HP decided to end DECnet's development back around 2004/2005, so pretty
> much anything since that point has been either a bug fix, or an adaptation
to
> conform with modern requirements of a paying customer.
> 
> Current deployment numbers would be nearly impossible as many of the
> running systems are probably in isolated environments where the machines
> just continue to crank away with the "admins" having little or no
knowledge
> about them, so things are just left alone. Back in the day, we had
machines
> run for several years without a reboot, and then the reboots were often
> required by an update, facility maintenance or just out of posterity to
make
> sure they would come back up if there was a future outage.
> 
> I worked on the DECnet development team in operations support back in the
> late 90's and early 2000's, and before that 10 years in the networking
> development group. It's great to see the arguments being tossed back and
> forth on this thread as to the resiliency and flaws of DECnet, especially
> keeping in mind that it's 35+ years running and hasn't had and significant
> development in so long a period of time.
> 
> Having endured the support nightmares of TCP/IP back in the late 80's and
> early 90's, it is rewarding to see that the standards DECnet, set 3
decades
> ago, have kept the bar so high for TCP/IP's eventual maturity.
>

Yep, DEC created some amazing technology in its time. Unfortunately, DEC did
not have the management and marketing vision to really drive these products
to the levels they should have achieved.

Another case in point - I have video (VHS converted to MP4 file) of a few
internal SW Engineering talks. One of these 1980's talks was presenting
Network Application Services (NAS). When you listen to this talk, you begin
to realize that what they are talking about is today known as SOA (Service
Oriented Architecture i.e. distributed network services)

For a walk down memory lane, check out this Oct 1987 video presentation from
Mike Horner called "Digital Equipment - Future Directions in Computing"
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2Rs-u55XUc&feature=em-upload_owner>

Regards,

Kerry Main
Kerry dot main at starkgaming dot com