Q & A Repository

Subject: Re: VS Web Server

Posted By: Thomas Junker
Date: 7/15/02 at 7:26 a.m.

In Response To: VS WEB SERVER (Thomas Junker)

Subject: Re: VS Web Server

Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 13:16:52 -0500

On 14 Nov 97 at 13:38, xxxx wrote:

> Thomas,
>
> I'm very interested indeed to hear more about the technicalities of the
> VS Web Server you advertise.

Thank you for your interest. I am developing a standard Internet web server to run on and access data in the VS platform. The demo available 8-12 hours a day through my Unofficial Wang VS Information Center website is a single-connection version that I used to explore the concept and prove that it could be done. I hope to have the real thing in beta during the first calendar quarter of 1998.

The production server will run as a background task or tasks on the VS and use one subtask for each connection it manages. It will likely be configurable to run multiple server instances due to a VS TCP/IP limitation of 32 connections per task, and will almost certainly be configurable to run multiple servers for different application areas or file sets. The configurability will probably exceed the performance capacity of any existing VS model simply because that is good design -- for all I know the VS will evolve to yield tenfold performance at dramatically lower cost in the next couple of years.

HTML, GIF, JPG and other files accessible through the web server are stored in the VS file system. File types known to the server can be delivered directly to the user from native VS files, although server efficiency dictates that the most commonly used HTML and graphic files be preprocessed to compute byte counts that the server must know in advance of reading the entirety of files.

VS print files are also known to the server and on retrieval are formatted for browser display. Several examples are available for viewing on the demo.

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executables are supported within the context of the VS. CGI programs in Procedure, BASIC and PACE HLI are viewable on the present demo. An HTML template processing facility will be included to free CGI programs of the responsibility of constructing HTML documents. CGI programs will be able to return data items and the name of an HTML template into which to merge them.

Security will be provided by IP filtering, mapping of URI pathnames to the VS file system, optional userid/password/VS protection classes, and perhaps other mechanisms.

Standard server logging and statistics will be supported.

> We have a plethora of PACE-bound data that we want to enable Web
> users to query. Your ideas sound like just what we need.

Wonderful! From the work and experiments I've done so far it seems that PACE HLI subroutines acting as Web Server CGI programs may provide the easiest way to interface your PACE data to the web. Performance limitations on user population may be an issue but I do not yet have any benchmark measurements to offer you. I am proceeding on the assumption that the most important issue is the connectivity, and that if that can be provided all other issues such as performance are amenable to various less complicated treatments.

> However, as yet we don't have TCP/IP implemented on any of our VSs
> and I'm uncertain how to start with this. Can you tell me what
> hardware/software is required?

The ease of connecting the VS to an IP network is one of the best-kept secrets in the Wang world. Wang did a full 802.3 implementation with the technical thoroughness for which they are known. They only things they did not do were to widely publicize the result and to keep it current with later evolutionary movements toward 10BaseT and such. Each of the two present classes of VS cabinet has a LAN IOC option.

The small cabinets (VS5000/6000) use either the 50V56A or 50V56B. I don't know what the difference is between the A and the B. I have a B in my VS6230T -- at least that is what the config says. The Wang 802.3 manual indicates that an internal jumper or switch configures the IOC for Thin or Thick ethernet. The IOC has both BNC and 15-pin AUI connectors on the back. Either type of connection can be used to attach a transceiver that converts to 10BaseT or any of the other Ethernet connectivity. Some hubs also provide direct 15-pin AUI connectivity. In my case the VS is wired directly to my PC using Thin Ethernet cable, two BNC "T" connectors and two terminators.

The large cabinets (VS300/7000/8000/9000/12000/16000) use the 70V56, which offers a 15-pin AUI connector. As with the small cabinet models this is readily connected to a transceiver to convert to 10BaseT if an AUI connector is not available on a hub or router.

With the 802.3 hardware in place you then need only VS TCP/IP. WSN is a prerequisite for TCP/IP because WSN loads the microcode to the 802.3, which can also be used for WSN links to other VS systems. WSN also provides the internal interface for presenting remote network workstations to the OS. Logons via TCP/IP appear as remote logons from a system named "TERMINAL" in the same way as remote logons from other VS systems, as 5556C remote workstations. Those are the workstations that result from the GENEDIT parameter that specifies the maximum number of remote logons.

If you have a serious interest in working with TCP/IP on your VS, I suggest you scout the market now for an appropriate LAN IOC. Rumor has it that Wang may bundle TCP/IP early next year, in which case those IOCs will suddenly be at a premium as users seek them in order to try out TCP/IP.

It is also possible to connect TCP/IP via X.25 through a TC IOC, but experience with VS TC suggests that this will have an upper bandwidth much lower than the LAN connection. Interestingly, VS TCP/IP can use the LAN and X.25 routes to IP networks at the same time.

I expect that my web server will be released through Wang, although we have not yet concluded an agreement. In such case it is likely that Wang will bundle the web server for then-current maintenance customers, as is Wang's present direction of movement for formerly unbundled software of wide appeal. SAM and EVAS are now bundled in OS 7.53 along with two new admin products.

In any case I hope to offer an evaluation product well in advance of a formal release unless the terms of an agreement with Wang preclude it. I am considering offering the present demo, even though it is only single-connection, so that customers may experiment with PACE and other interfacing and get a feel for how the real thing will work.

I hope this is helpful. If you have any other questions, by all means ask them.

Regards,

Thomas Junker

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