TGV Prepares to Ship MultiNet V3.3

New Menuing System, VCI Driver Support, NetWare Features, and More Added to
V3.3 of TGV's Connectivity Solution for OpenVMS

December 7, 1993 -- SAN FRANCISCO - TGV, Inc., will be demonstrating V3.3
of MultiNet, the newest release of the company's multi-protocol
connectivity software for Digital's OpenVMS platform, at DECUS '93/San
Francisco this week. Among the new features added to MultiNet V3.3 are a
menu-driven configuration utility, support for Digital's new VCI
specification, MTU path discovery, and multicast support. Enhancements
also have been made to existing features, such as SNMP, SMTP, and network
drivers, to add connectivity, functionality, and flexibility.

MultiNet is a multi-protocol networking environment created to link Digital
Equipment Corporation's OpenVMS VAX and Alpha AXP computing systems to
open-systems computing platforms using networking standards such as the
Transmission Control Protocol/lnternet Protocol (TCP/IP), Network File
System (NFS), and Sequenced Packet Exchange/lnternetwork Packet Exchange
(SPX/IPX) protocols. The connectivity engine for TGV's open systems
solution is MultiNet itself, which provides TCP/IP and SPX/IPX support for
OpenVMS. TGV also offers MultiNet NFS Server and MultiNet NFS Client as
support products, as well as MultiWare Server, the company's newest
NetWare-to-OpenVMS connectivity software solution.

"Our customers have come to depend on the wide range of connectivity
options available with MultiNet," said L. Stuart Vance, Vice President of
Engineering for TGV. "With this release, we are focusing on fulfilling
customer requests by enhancing specific functions and making other
features easier to access and use. We believe the key to MultiNet's
success is that it continues to evolve to meet the needs of our customers,
and the features in MultiNet V3.3 mark the next logical step in that
evolution.

New Features Added to MultiNet V3.3

Most prominent among the new features offered in MultiNet V3.3 is a
menu-driven configuration utility. With menu-driven configuration, it is
easier than ever before to select and configure specific connectivity
features. Since MultiNet offers a wide range of features and options, the
new menuing utility makes it simple to scroll through the various options
and then select and activate specific functions. MultiNet V3.3 also has
upgraded its installation procedure to support NetWare-only installations,
so for network environments that only need NetWare-to-OpenVMS
connectivity, MultiNet can be tailored to suit the needs of the
environment without having to install additional TCP/IP and NFS drivers
and software.

TGV has also added support for the Virtual Communications Interface (VCI),
Digital's new high-performance driver specification for Ethernet, Token
Ring, and FDDI. Additionally, MultiNet now supports multicast IP data
transmissions, so users can run multicast-capable applications. Multicast
IP supports sending data streams to selected groups of hosts within an IP
network, rather than a single host (unicast) or all hosts (broadcast).
Multicast support will prove particularly valuable to support third-party
OpenVMS audio/video applications, since it will mean that only hosts
registered to receive the particular multicast data stream will process
the data. Unlike broadcast applications, this saves significant CPU cycles
on hosts not registered to participate in the multicast group.

New support for Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) path discovery will also
help optimize network performance. MTU discovery allows the host to
determine the packet size that is optimal for the network path between
source and destination host, and then adjusts the size to suit the size of
the network "pipes." The result is a more efficient network connection
with less packet fragmentation and fewer retransmissions.

For X terminals that support the X Display Manager Control Protocol (XDMCP)
support has been added to MultiNet for the X Windows Version 11, Release
5, XDM server. The MultiNet XDM server allows an X Windows terminal to
look to the user exactly like an OpenVMS workstation. Additionally,
support for the X Windows Version 11, Release 5, font server has been
added. The font server allows X Windows servers that support the MIT Font
Server version 2.0 protocol to access DECwindows fonts from the OpenVMS
system across the network, rather than having to store all the standard
Digital fonts on a local disk. It also provides fonts for X Windows
terminals that are not able to interpret the native DECwindows fonts
downloaded by NFS or TFTP.

MultiNet V3.3 utilities also now provide internal help via the OpenVMS Help
Library facility. This provides application help information in a format
more familiar to OpenVMS users.

Enhancements to Existing MultiNet Features

A number of features already offered in MultiNet have been enhanced as
well. To optimize security management, Access Control List (ACL) support
is now offered for both MultiNet NFS and MultiWare (NetWare) file servers.
This means MultiNet automatically maps ACLs to support either NFS groups
or NetWare trustee rights to maintain access rights to specific files and
directories.

The TCPDUMP network protocol analysis utility has been enhanced. This
upgrade supports additional protocol decoding for SNMP, MTU path
discovery, TALK, and IP packet reassembly. It also supports reading in
Network General Sniffer dump files. Additionally, the TCPVIEW utility has
been added, providing protocol decoding support in a simple-to-use X
Windows application.

MultiNet's emulation of DEC TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS (formerly known as
UCX) has been enhanced with V3.3. The UCX emulation now supports the
Digital Equipment Corporation TeamLinks, POSIX for OpenVMS (socket
library), and DCE for OpenVMS products, and is now compatible with the UCX
V2.0 $QIO interface and auxiliary (inetd) server.

MultiNet V3.3 adds support for PATHWORKS for OpenVMS (LAN Manager) Version
5 running over TCP/IP. PATHWORKS Version 5 will contain an interface that
provides transparent support of MultiNet.

"We have been working very closely with the product development staffs at
Digital to ensure that MultiNet interoperates properly with Digital's new
and enhanced networking applications," Vance added. "Working
cooperatively, it was relatively easy to add new support for PATHWORKS,
POSIX, TeamLinks, and DCE for OpenVMS."

Electronic mail services have been upgraded as well. MultiNet V3.3 has a
new mail configuration utility, simplifying management of the MultiNet
electronic mail environment. A personal "address-book" facility has been
added to maintain personal mail aliases and mailing lists. Transparent
SMTP-to-DECnet mail gatewaying has also been added.

Tn3270 terminal emulation has also been enhanced and now includes support
for international character sets and keyboard mapping. A Help key is
supported to provide a view of the keyboard map, and a screen capture
utility has also been added as part of MultiNet's 3270 terminal
emulation.

MultiNet V3.3 is scheduled to ship in mid-March 1994.

Licensing fees for the current version of MultiNet range from $1,100 to
$24,000, depending on CPU type, and annual maintenance fees are available
for 12 percent of the licensing fee. Existing MultiNet customers who have
support contracts will receive a software upgrade without additional
charge. MultiNet V3.3 is compatible with OpenVMS AXP V1.0 and later,
VAX/VMS V5.0 and later, and OpenVMS VAX V6.0 and later. MultiNet NFS
Server and MultiNet NFS Client are also available and licensed by CPU
type. MultiWare Server is available and licensed on a per-user basis.

TGV, Inc., designs, develops, markets and supports standards-based
networking and application software for OpenVMS and related computing
environments. TGV, Inc., is located at 101 Cooper Street, Santa Cruz,
California 95060; telephone: 800-TGV-3440, or (408) 457-5200; FAX: (408)
457-5205.

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