Unix-like and otherwise POSIX-compliant systems, including Linux-based systems and all Mac OS X versions, have a simple system for managing individual file permissions, which in this article are called “traditional Unix permissions”. Most of these systems also support some kind of access control lists, either proprietary (old HP-UX ACLs, for example), or POSIX.1e ACLs, based on an early POSIX draft that was abandoned, or NFSv4 ACLs, which are part of the NFSv4 standard.

DOS variants (including MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me) do not have permissions, only file attributes. There is a read-only attribute (R), which can be set or unset on a file by any user or program, and therefore does not prevent him/her from changing/deleting the file. There is no permission in these systems which would keep a user from reading a file.

OpenVMS (a.k.a. VMS), as well as Microsoft Windows NT and its derivatives (including Windows 2000 and Windows XP), use access control lists (ACLs) to administer a more complex and varied set of permissions. OpenVMS also uses a permission scheme similar to that of Unix, but more complex. There are four categories(System, Owner, Group, and World) and four types of access permissions (Read, Write, Execute, and Delete). The categories are not mutually disjoint: World includes Group which in turn includes Owner. The System category independently includes system users (similar to superusers in Unix).

Classic Mac OSes are similar to DOS variants and DOS-based Windows: they do not support permissions, but only a “Protected” file attribute.

The AmigaOS Filesystem, AmigaDOS supports a relatively advanced permissions system, for a single-user OS. In AmigaOS 1.x, files had Archive, Read, Write, Execute and Delete (collectively known as ARWED) permissions/flags. In AmigaOS 2.x and higher, additional Hold, Script, and Pure permissions/flags were added.

Mac OS X versions 10.3 (“Panther”) and prior use POSIX-compliant permissions. Mac OS X, beginning with version 10.4 (“Tiger”), also support the use of NFSv4 ACLs. They still support “traditional Unix permissions” as used in previous versions of Mac OS X, and the ”Apple Mac OS X Server version 10.4+ File Services Administration Manual” recommends using only traditional Unix permissions if possible. It also still supports the Mac OS Classic’s “Protected” attribute.

Solaris ACL support depends on the filesystem being used – older UFS filesystem supports POSIX.1e ACLs, while ZFS supports only NFSv4 ACLs.

Linux supports POSIX.1e ACLs. There is experimental support for NFSv4 ACLs for ext3 filesystem.

FreeBSD supports POSIX.1e ACLs on UFS and NFSv4 ACLs on ZFS.. There is experimental support for NFSv4 ACLs for UFS.

IBM z/OS implements file security via RACF (Resource Access Control Facility

)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Filesystem permissions, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Adoption capability overview

Internet Explorer 5.0 had support for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows NT 3.x, Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 3 or later) and Windows 2000. However, OS releases after Windows Me, such as Windows XP, included Internet Explorer 6 (or higher). Support for NT 3.x and Win 95 support was dropped, as well as support for HP-UX, Solaris, Mac OS, and Mac OS X. In addition, users of Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows 2000 could upgrade to at least the first version of IE 6.0 or IE 6.0 SP1. Also, IE5 never supported 68k Macs, which had been dropped in Internet Explorer 4.5.

PC software

*Windows 32-bit versions, including Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT version 3.51, Windows NT version 4.0, and Windows 2000

*Windows 16-bit versions, including Windows version 3.1 and Windows for Workgroups version 3.11

*Note Although Windows NT version 3.51 is a 32-bit platform, it must run the 16-bit version of Internet Explorer.

*UNIX, including Sun Solaris 2.5.1, Sun Solaris 2.6, and Hewlett Packard HP-UX

PC hardware

*Internet Explorer 5.0 for 32-bit Windows Operating Systems

**Minimum Requirements: 486DX/66& MHz or higher, Windows 95/98, 12MB RAM, 56MB disk space.

**Download Size: 37MB

**There was also a 380K active installer that only downloaded selected components

*Internet Explorer 5.0 for 16-bit Windows Operating Systems

**Minimum Requirements: 486DX or higher, Windows 3.1 or NT 3.5, 12MB RAM for browser only installation (16MB RAM if using the Java VM). 30M

**Download Size: 9.4MB

Apple Macintosh

Internet Explorer 5 for Apple Macintosh requirements.

*PowerPC processor

*Mac OS version 7.6.1 or later

*8 MB RAM plus Virtual Memory

*12 MB hard disk space

*QuickTime 3.0 or later

*Open Transport 1.2 or later

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Internet Explorer 5, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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DNS primarily uses User Datagram Protocol (UDP) on port number 53 to serve requests. DNS queries consist of a single UDP request from the client followed by a single UDP reply from the server. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is used when the response data size exceeds 512 bytes, or for tasks such as zone transfers. Some operating systems, such as HP-UX, are known to have resolver implementations that use TCP for all queries, even when UDP would suffice.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Domain Name System, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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The naming convention is to prefix every product name with “IBM Tivoli Storage Manager”:

* Client aka Backup/Archive Client for most major operating systems at supported versions

* Server for most major server operating systems

* for Advanced Copy Services (Formerly ITSM for Hardware)- Hardware based snapshots for major database backups. Although it still exists as a product today the newer releases are re-branded as FCM (FlashCopy Manager)

* for Copy Services – Windows snapshots for Exchange and MSSQL.

* for Databases – An API for Oracle RMAN and a GUI & CLI tool for MSSQL backups.

* for Data retention – A zOS client to manage long-term archiving of data.

* for Enterprise Resource Planning – - Allows online backup of SAP R/3 stored in Oracle or DB2. Formerly backint developed by IBM Germany in Entwicklung by the Enterprise Service Division (ESD) as a “Support Offering” to back up SAP R/3 directly into TSM. This product was acquired by Tivoli as Tivoli Data Protection for R/3.

* for Mail – These are external applications that tie into the API for Lotus Domino (aka Notes) and Microsoft Exchange for online backups.

* for SharePoint – This is a repackaged copy of DocAve, still marketed by OEM AvePoint

* for Space Management – (HSM) for Linux and AIX. The Linux/Unix product uses the “MIGDESTINATION” hierarchy within TSM and has objects managed as “SPACEMG” types.

* for HSM for Windows – (HSM) for Windows. The Windows product

* for Storage Area Networks (SAN) – aka “LAN Free Storage Agent” This is a modified version of the TSM Server itself, offering no local TSM Database. Configuration is purely for server-to-server library sharing. This allows the agent to write to tapes managed by the primary TSM server without having to pass data over the network.

* for System Backup and Recovery – This is a standalone product for AIX bare metal recovery. The original name was Sysback/6000, produced by Tony Johnson in the 1990s and sold by IBM as a service offering through IBM Global Services. Sysback can back up and restore files, filesystems, volume groups, and entire systems to local or remote disk, local or remote tape, NIM servers, and TSM. Current versions can also recover systems via the files backed up using the TSM B/A client. There is a major branch of this product. When Tony Johnson left IBM in 1998, he started a company and product named Storix. Storix is feature rich and supports AIX and Linux, has a GUI management interface, and is very similar in origins to Sysback. Storix actively competes with IBM’s Sysback due differing price structures and features.

Special APIs

Administrative functions are accessed through the IBM command line tool, via IBM’s Websphere Portal application known as the “Administration Center”, or via ODBC. No third-party admin API clients exist as of March 2008.

ITSM utilizes two special-purpose agents. First is the LAN-Free Storage Agent. This is a limited function TSM server which is configured as a library client and uses server-to-server communication to coordinate the use of storage resources which are configured to TSM but which are also presented to the storage agent. Usually this LAN-free and server-free backup agent is installed on the specific client; however, it is network accessible and could be utilized to bypass network bottlenecks. One example would be to connect via infiniband between two Bladecenter chassis, where one has SAN attachment to tape, and the other does not. This could bypass a limited ethernet bandwidth without having to move the TSM server instance.

The second is the NDMP API. NDMP is used by NetApp and other network attached storage (NAS) to allow tape access to the appliance itself rather than having to back it up via an attached NAS client. TSM supports NDMP v3 and v4, with data transiting the LAN or allowing the appliance direct access to shared tape.

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager also provides a method to back up Microsoft SharePoint 2003/2007, via an IBM-rebranded version of the DocAve product from AvePoint. AvePoint markets their DocAve product separately, but IBM has an OEM agreement that allows IBM to remarket the product.

Interface products

* IBM TSM for Storage Archive Manager – This is a marketing name for TSM Enterprise Edition features which help maintain archive retention for regulatory purposes.

* IBM TSM for NDMP – this is a marketing name for TSM EE features allowing both LAN and LAN-free backups of network attached storage (NAS). Specifically, NetApp filers or EMC Centera are supported; however, any NDMP v3 or NDMP v4 client should be supported.

* IBM Tivoli Storage Manager Operational Reporting – This is a portion of the TSM MMC for Windows which can generate webpages and email out of SQL queries and simple processing of that data. Custom SQL can be added; however, the reporting tool provides no trending or graphing functionality. This is seen as one of the major faults of TSM.

* The Disaster Recovery Manager (DRM), is part of the “Enterprise Edition” of the product. This is a set of commands which aid in the management of offsite secondary copies of data, the TSM Database backups required to access those media, and the configuration data required to recover the TSM database in case of a loss.

* Operator for TSM(OTSM), Debriefing Software’s Windows based gui for managing one or more TSM servers. Allows easy handling of offsite volumes through animated step-by-step instructions.

* Wizards Storage Portal – TSM Plug-in, Debriefing Software’s cloud based monitoring and reporting tool for TSM and SVC(SAN Volume Controller). Includes 24×7 monitoring, user defined dashboards, graphic reporting, remote TSM-management and integration with Operator for TSM.

Non-Tivoli API clients

SQL-Backtrack – A product by BMC to back up a variety of database products into TSM.

DB2 – As a major internally developed product, DB2 contains its own direct connection into the TSM API.

adsmpipe – an unsupported tool provided by IBM through its RedBook site for piping data directly into TSM. Commonly used to back up MySQL

Zmanda Recovery Manager – a MySQL backup product integrated with TSM provided by Zmanda

Data Protector for MySQL – a software to back up MySQL to TSM provided by repostor MySQL

Data Protector for PostgreSQL – software to back up PostgreSQL to TSM provided by repostor postgreSQL

Data Protector for Firebird/Interbase – a software to back up Firebird/Interbase databases to TSM provided by repostor FirebirdInterbase

Data Protector for Sybase – a software to back up sybase databases to TSM provided by repostor sybase

Data Protector for SQLanywhere – a software to back up SQLanywhere databases to TSM provided by repostor SQLanywhere

Data PRotector for Progress – a software to back up Progress databases to TSM provided by repostor Progress

Data PRotector for Ingres – a software to back up Ingres databases to TSM provided by repostor Ingres

ADINT – developed by IBM Germany in Entwicklung by the Enterprise Service Division (ESD) as a “Support Offering” to back up SAP MaxDB directly into TSM.

Archive Backup Client for OpenVMS – A product by STORServer Inc. to back up OpenVMS systems into TSM. With ABC you can back up, archive, restore, query and manage OpenVMS files stored on TSM servers as a logical extension to the on-line OpenVMS ODS-2 or ODS-5 file systems.

STORServer Data Protection for Oracle Rdb on OpenVMS – A product by STORServer Inc. to back up Oracle on OpenVMS into TSM.

STORServer Appliance for VMware Consolidated Backup – A product by STORServer Inc. to back up VMware to TSM Servers.

CBMR / TBMR – A product by Cristie sold as a bare metal restore (BMR) tool for Linux, Solaris, HP-UX and Windows using TSM as a datastore.

Data Protection for Microsoft SharePoint – IBM Tivoli Storage Manager also provids backup method to Microsoft SharePoint, this is with integration of AvePoint DocAve. So TDP For SharePoint to take backup of MSP2003 and MSP2007 is now also ready.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Development: 1989–2000

In 1989, HP determined that reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architectures were approaching a processing limit at one instruction per cycle. HP researchers investigated a new architecture, later named explicitly parallel instruction computing (EPIC), that allows the processor to execute multiple instructions in each clock cycle. EPIC implements a form of very long instruction word (VLIW) architecture, in which a single instruction word contains multiple instructions. With EPIC, the compiler determines in advance which instructions can be executed at the same time, so the microprocessor simply executes the instructions and does not need elaborate mechanisms to determine which instructions to execute in parallel.

The goal of this approach is two-fold: to enable deeper inspection of the code to identify additional opportunities for parallel execution, and to simplify processor design and reduce energy consumption by eliminating the need for runtime scheduling circuitry.

HP believed that it was no longer cost-effective for individual enterprise systems companies such as itself to develop proprietary microprocessors, so it partnered with Intel in 1994 to develop the IA-64 architecture, derived from EPIC. Intel was willing to undertake a very large development effort on IA-64 in the expectation that the resulting microprocessor would be used by the majority of enterprise systems manufacturers. HP and Intel initiated a large joint development effort with a goal of delivering the first product, Merced, in 1998.

During development, Int

Several groups developed operating systems for the architecture, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, and UNIX variants such as HP-UX, Solaris,

Tru64 UNIX, and Monterey/64 (the last three were canceled before reaching the market). By 1997, it was apparent that the IA-64 architecture and the compiler were much more difficult to implement than originally thought, and the delivery of Merced began slipping.

Technical difficulties included the very high transistor counts needed to support the wide instruction words and the large caches. There were also structural problems within the project, as the two parts of the joint team used different methodologies and had slightly different priorities. Since Merced was the first EPIC processor, the development effort encountered more unanticipated problems than the team was accustomed to. In addition, the EPIC concept depends on compiler capabilities that had never been implemented before, so more research was needed.

Intel announced the official name of the processor, ”Itanium”, on October 4, 1999. Within hours, the name ”Itanic” had been coined on a Usenet newsgroup, a reference to ”Titanic”, the “unsinkable” ocean liner which sank in 1912.

“Itanic” has since often been used by ”The Register”,

Scott McNealy, and others, to imply that the multibillion dollar investment in Itanium—and the early hype associated with it—would be followed by its relatively quick demise.

Itanium (Merced): 2001

By the time Itanium was released in June 2001, its performance was not superior to competing RISC and CISC processors. Itanium competed at the low-end (primarily 4-CPU and smaller systems) with servers based on x86 processors, and at the high end with IBM’s POWER architecture and Sun Microsystems’ SPARC architecture. Intel repositioned Itanium to focus on high-end business and HPC computing, attempting to duplicate x86′s successful “horizontal” market (i.e., single architecture, multiple systems vendors). The success of this initial processor version was limited to replacing PA-RISC in HP systems, Alpha in Compaq systems and MIPS in SGI systems, though IBM also delivered a supercomputer based on this processor.

POWER and SPARC remained strong, while the 32-bit x86 architecture continued to grow into the enterprise space. With economies of scale fueled by its enormous installed base, x86 has remained the preeminent “horizontal” architecture in enterprise computing.

Only a few thousand systems using the original ”Merced” Itanium processor were sold, due to relatively poor performance, high cost and limited software availability. Recognizing that the lack of software could be a serious problem for the future, Intel made thousands of these early systems available to independent software vendors (ISVs) to stimulate development. HP and Intel brought the next-generation Itanium 2 processor to market a year later.

Itanium 2: 2002–2010

The Itanium 2 processor was released in 2002, and was marketed for enterprise servers rather than for the whole gamut of high-end computing. The first Itanium 2, code-named ”McKinley”, was jointly developed by HP and Intel. It relieved many of the performance problems of the original Itanium processor, which were mostly caused by an inefficient memory subsystem. ”McKinley” contained 221 million transistors (of which 25 million were for logic), measured 19.5& mm by 21.6& mm (421& mm2) and was fabricated in a 180& nm, bulk CMOS process with six layers of aluminium metallization.

In 2003, AMD released the Opteron, which implemented its 64-bit architecture (x86-64). Opteron gained rapid acceptance in the enterprise server space because it provided an easy upgrade from x86. Intel responded by implementing x86-64 in its Xeon microprocessors in 2004.

Intel released a new Itanium 2 family member, codenamed ”Madison”, in 2003. Madison used a 130& nm process and was the basis of all new Itanium processors until Montecito was released in June 2006.

In March 2005, Intel announced that it was working on a new Itanium processor, codenamed ”Tukwila”, to be released in 2007. Tukwila would have four processor cores and would replace the Itanium bus with a new Common System Interface, which would also be used by a new Xeon processor. Later that year, Intel revised Tukwila’s delivery date to late 2008.

In November 2005, the major Itanium server manufacturers joined with Intel and a number of software vendors to form the Itanium Solutions Alliance to promote the architecture and accelerate software porting. The Alliance announced that its members would invest $10 billion in Itanium solutions by the end of the decade.

In 2006, Intel delivered ”Montecito” (marketed as the Itanium 2 9000 series), a dual-core processor that roughly doubled performance and decreased energy consumption by about 20 percent.

Intel released the Itanium 2 9100 series, codenamed ”Montvale”, in November 2007. In May 2009 the schedule for Tukwila, its follow-on, was revised again, with release to OEMs planned for the first quarter of 2010.

Itanium 9300 (Tukwila) : 2010

The Itanium 9300 series processor, codenamed ”Tukwila”, was released on 8 February 2010 with greater performance and memory capacity.

The device uses a 65& nm process, includes two to four cores, up to 24 MiB on-die caches, Hyper-Threading technology and integrated memory controllers. It implements double-device data correction, which helps to fix memory errors. Tukwila also implements Intel QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) to replace the Itanium bus-based architecture. It has a peak interprocessor bandwidth of 96 GB/s and a peak memory bandwidth of 34 GB/s. With QuickPath, the processor has integrated memory controllers and interfaces the memory directly, using QPI interfaces to directly connect to other processors and I/O hubs. QuickPath is also used on Intel processors using the ”Nehalem” microarchitecture, making it probable that Tukwila and Nehalem will be able to use the same chipsets. Tukwila incorporates four memory controllers, each of which supports multiple DDR3 DIMMs via a separate memory controller, much like the upcoming Nehalem-based Xeon processor code-named ”Beckton”.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Itanium, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Competition

In the market for relational databases, Oracle Database competes against commercial products such as IBM’s DB2 UDB and Microsoft SQL Server. Oracle and IBM tend to battle for the mid-range database market on UNIX and Linux platforms, while Microsoft dominates the mid-range database market on Microsoft Windows platforms. However, since they share many of the same customers, Oracle and IBM tend to support each other’s products in many middleware and application categories (for example: WebSphere, PeopleSoft, and Siebel Systems CRM), and IBM’s hardware divisions work closely with Oracle on performance-optimizing server-technologies (for example, Linux on zSeries). The two companies have a relationship perhaps best described as “coopetition”. Niche commercial competitors include Teradata (in data warehousing and business intelligence), Software AG’s ADABAS, Sybase, and IBM’s Informix, among many others.

In 2007, competition with SAP AG occasioned litigation from Oracle Corporation.

Increasingly, the Oracle database products compete against such open-source software relational database systems as PostgreSQL, Firebird, and MySQL. Oracle acquired Innobase, supplier of the InnoDB codebase to MySQL, in part to compete better against open source alternatives, and acquired Sun Microsystems, owner of MySQL, in 2010. Database products licensed as open source are, by the legal terms of the Open Source Definition, free to distribute and free of royalty or other licensing fees.

Pricing

Oracle Corporation offers term

; Enterprise Edition: , the database that costs the most per machine-processor among Oracle database editions, at $47,500 per processor.

; Standard Edition: Cheaper: it can run on up to four processors but has fewer features than Enterprise Edition—it lacks proper parallelization, etc; but remains quite suitable for running medium-sized applications.

; Standard ONE: Sells even more cheaply, but remains limited to two CPUs. Standard Edition ONE sells on a per-seat basis with a five-user minimum. Oracle Corporation usually sells the licenses with an extra 22% cost for support and upgrades (access to MetaLink—Oracle Corporation’s support site) which customers need to renew annually.

; Oracle Express Edition (Oracle XE): An addition to the Oracle database product family (beta version released in 2005, production version released in February 2006), offers a free version of the Oracle RDBMS, but one limited to 4 GB of user data and to 1 GB of RAM (SGA+PGA). XE will use no more than one CPU and lacks an internal JVM. XE runs only on Windows and on Linux, not on AIX, Solaris, HP-UX and the other operating systems available for other editions.

As computers running Oracle often have eight or more processors, the software price can rise into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The total cost of ownership often exceeds this, as large Oracle installations usually require experienced and trained database administrators to do the set-up properly. Because of the product’s large installed base and available training courses, Oracle specialists in some areas have become a more abundant resource than those for more exotic databases. Oracle frequently provides special training offers for database-administrators.

On Linux, Oracle’s ”certified configurations” include mostly commercial Linux distributions (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3, 4 and 5, SuSE SLES 8, 9 and 10, Asianux) which can cost in a range from a few hundred to a few thousand USD per year (depending on processor architecture and the support package purchased).

The Oracle database system can also install and run on freely-available Linux distributions such as the Red Hat-based Centos, or Debian-based systems.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Oracle Database, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Since about 2000 the focus of HP-UX has increasingly been on enhanced reliability, security, workload management, and partitioning. The reliability is provided through single-system quality and self-healing, and in multi-system installations, clustering technology and application failover on a system outage, as well as error monitoring and correction. HP-UX 11i offers a common root disk for its clustered file system. HP Serviceguard is the cluster solution for HP-UX. HP Global Workload Management adjusts workloads to optimize performance, and integrates with Instant Capacity on Demand so installed resources can be paid for in 30-minute increments as needed for peak workload demands.

Security is integrated in HP-UX, with full ‘trusted mode’ shipping with v3. Features significantly increased with 11i v2, with the addition of kernel-based intrusion detection, strong random number generation, stack buffer overflow protection, security partitioning, role-based access management, and various open source security tools.

System partitioning (virtualization) ranges from hardware partitions to isolated OS virtual partitions on cell-based servers, and HP Virtual Machines (VMs) on all Integrity servers. HP VMs support guests running on HP-UX 11i v3 hosts – guests can run Linux, Windows, OpenVMS 8.4 or HP-UX. HP supports online VM guest migration, where encryption can secure the guest contents during migration.

HP-UX 11i v3 scales as follows:

* 128 processor cores

* 2 TB main memory

* 32 TB maximum file system

* 16 TB maximum file size

With the acquisition of Compaq in 2001, HP obtained another Unix-based system, the Tru64 for AlphaServer hardware platform. HP continues to sell Tru64 UNIX, together with TruCluster software, but discontinued AlphaServer manufacturing in 2007.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article HP-UX, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Version 1.0

Acrobat 1.0 was originally released 15 June 1993 for Macintosh, later for DOS and Windows 3.1. This was not available in single copies and was not initially free, with Acrobat Reader originally priced at $50 per user. After a while the IRS purchased a right to distribute Reader 1.0, effectively making it seem free to those who obtained it that way:

*PDF version 1.0 supported.

*Acrobat Exchange 1.0 (included PDFWriter printer driver and Acrobat Exchange application).

*Acrobat Distiller 1.0. Created a PDF from PostScript (no printer driver at this stage).

Version 2.0

Acrobat 2.0 for Windows and Macintosh was first released September 1994:

*PDF version 1.1 (and prior) supported.

*Acrobat Exchange 2.0, package as 1.0.

*Acrobat Professional 2.0, which included the contents of Acrobat Exchange, plus Distiller.

*There were 2.1 updates.

*Acrobat Catalog was introduced, using Verity, Inc. technology to create searchable indexes to PDF files. Searching required a special version of Acrobat Reader or Acrobat Exchange.

Version 3.0

Acrobat 3.0 was released November 1996. The first to display PDF files in-browser, and the first to support form filling:

*PDF version 1.2 (and prior) supported.

*A free Reader to allow searching was made available, but was not part of the default download.

*Acrobat 3.0: replaced Acrobat Professional 2.1. Included Acrobat Catalog, and a Distiller printer driver.

*Updates to 3.01 and 3.02; 3.02 introduced extended forms capabilities and JavaSc

*First release with support for Windows 95 and later. Last release with support for Windows 3.1.

Version 4.0

Acrobat 4.0 was released April 1999.

*PDF version 1.3 (and prior) supported. Added support for PKI and digital signatures via plug-ins.

*Acrobat 4.0.

*Updates to 4.05.

*Introduced Distiller Server 4.0, identical to the regular Distiller but with a multi-user license (Windows, Linux, Solaris).

*Acrobat Business Tools 4.0: a limited version of Acrobat.

Version 5.0

Acrobat 5.0 was released May 2001.

*PDF version 1.4 (and prior) supported.

*Acrobat 5.0. PDFWriter removed from Macintosh application

*Updates to 5.0.5. Acrobat 5.0.5 was the first to be able to run native in Mac OS X, but also ran in Mac OS 9.

*Distiller Server 5.0.

*Acrobat Approval 5.0: a limited version of Acrobat, mainly sold to people who wanted to digitally sign or save fill in forms.

*Acrobat Reader 5.1: supported the Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions (e.g. forms saving) (which was then under a different name).

*Last version to support Windows 95.

Version 6.0

Acrobat 6.0 was released July 2003. No Linux or Unix versions were released:

*PDF version 1.5 (and prior) supported. Added support for PKI via Microsoft Windows CryptoAPI without plug-in.

*Acrobat Professional 6.0: replacement for Acrobat 5.0, with new features. Distiller printer driver renamed Adobe PDF. PDFWriter now gone for good. New version of Catalog integrated and not compatible with earlier products for searching.

*Acrobat Standard 6.0: limited version of Acrobat Professional, including Distiller but lacking features including Catalog, form design, prepress support.

*Updates to 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.3, 6.0.4, 6.0.5 and 6.0.6

*Dropped support for Windows 95 and Windows 98 First Edition. Acrobat Standard was for Windows 98 Second Edition, Me, NT 4.0 SP6, 2000 SP2, and XP only. The professional version dropped support for Windows 98 SE and ME. Version 6.0 also dropped support for Mac OS 9 and earlier. It was the first release for Mac OS X.

*Adobe Reader 6.0: Renamed from Acrobat Reader.

*Adobe Distiller 6.0.

*Acrobat Elements 6.0: PDF creation only, aimed at the corporate market (minimum 1000 licenses, Windows only)

*Acrobat Elements Server 6.0: client/server version of Acrobat Elements

*Technology for “Reader enabling”, allowing Reader to save, sign or annotate PDF files if the licensee had enabled the files.

Version 7.0

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 was released January 2005:

*PDF version 1.6 (and prior) supported. Added support for Adobe Policy Server rights management.

*Updates to 7.0.1, 7.0.2, 7.0.3, 7.0.5, 7.0.7, 7.0.8, 7.0.9, 7.1.0, 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 7.1.3 and 7.1.4.

*Dropped support for Windows 98 Second Edition and Windows Me.

*Acrobat Professional 7.0: now included Adobe LiveCycle Designer 7.0 (Windows only) for XML form design (different and incompatible with previous form support)—ability to embed 3D object information from the .u3d Universal 3D format. First version to include controversial mandatory product activation.

*Acrobat Standard 7.0

*Acrobat Elements 7.0 (now minimum 100 licenses)

*Acrobat 3D (Windows only): included all of the functionality of Acrobat Professional 7.0 as well as updated support for embedded 3D, tools for capturing 3D content from OpenGL applications, and the Adobe Acrobat 3D Toolkit for converting CAD documents to PDF objects. Also included is a version of the capture tool for installation on Unix.

*Windows NT 4.0 SP6, 2000 SP2, XP, Mac OS X only for Acrobat. Although Linux, Solaris (SPARC only), HP-UX and AIX versions of Adobe Reader have been released.

*Other LiveCycle products include LiveCycle Barcoded Forms, LiveCycle Document Security, LiveCycle Reader Extensions (previously Document Server for Reader Extensions and other names), LiveCycle Forms (previously Form Server), LiveCycle Form Manager, LiveCycle Policy Server and LiveCycle Workflow. Some of these are server solutions intended for large businesses. Only LiveCycle Designer is bundled with Acrobat Professional.

Version 8.0

Adobe Acrobat 8.0 was released November 2006:

*PDF version 1.7 (and prior) supported.

*Acrobat 8 Elements (was withdrawn before its expected release in mid-2007)

*Acrobat 8 Standard (Windows only; Macintosh version not produced)

*Acrobat 8 Professional

*Acrobat 3D Version 8 (released May 31). Ability to produce embedded PRC data: highly compressed format for geometry and graphics (requires Reader 8.1 to display). Capture 3D tools (Windows and Unix) for capturing 3D content from OpenGL applications. Product Manufacturing Information, with support for many different CAD formats.

*Acrobat Connect (new in Acrobat family, formerly Macromedia Breeze): online personal meeting rooms to collaborate in real time for up to 15 participants.

*Acrobat Connect Professional (new in Acrobat family, formerly Macromedia Breeze): Scalable, interactive web conferencing and multiple personal meeting rooms for everyone across an enterprise.

*Mac OS X versions are Universal binary and only run on Mac OS X 10.4 or greater.

*On June 2007, an update version 8.1 for Acrobat 8 Professional and Adobe Reader 8 was released in order to support Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Vista, and 64-bit Windows Operating Systems.

*September 2007, Reader 8.1.1 released for Linux and Solaris(SPARC) users.

*Version 8.2 was released on January 12, 2010.

*Version 8.2.1 was released on February 16, 2010.

*Version 8.2.2 was released on April 13, 2010.

*Version 8.2.3 was released on June 29, 2010. It fixed several critical security vulnerabilities.

*Version 8.2.4 was released on August 19, 2010.

Version 9.0

Adobe Acrobat 9.0 was released July 2008:

*PDF version 1.7 (and prior) supported. There are Adobe extensions to PDF 1.7 for Acrobat 9.

*Product Family includes: Acrobat 9 Standard (Windows only), Acrobat 9 Pro, Acrobat 9 Pro Extended (Windows only).

*Pro Extended Version includes Adobe Presenter and the features of Acrobat 3D.

*The ability to create Acroforms was restored to Acrobat Standard in this release (in versions 6 through 8, Acrobat Professional was required).

*Enable real-time collaboration of PDFs with synchronized document views and chat.

*Improved Web Capture for capturing entire web pages or just some parts into PDF.

*Integration with acrobat.com to enable storage and sharing of PDF files.

*Personalize a PDF Portfolio with customizable templates for navigation and branding.

*Compare and highlight the differences between two versions of a PDF document.

*Insert FLV (Flash) or H.264 video for direct playback in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader.

*Convert a variety of video formats to FLV for playback in PDF.

*Create PDF maps by importing geospatial files that retain metadata and coordinates.

*OCR PDFs (Paper Capture) using ClearScan. Adobe ClearScan technology creates custom Type1-CID fonts to match the visual appearance of a scanned document after optical character recognition (OCR). ClearScan does not replace the fonts with your system fonts or substitute them by Type1-MM (as in Acrobat 8 and earlier versions), but uses these newly created custom fonts. The custom fonts are embedded in the PDF file (this is obviously mandatory). If the OCR does not recognize a word with enough confidence, then the image (bitmap) of the word is shown in the PDF and the text is put above but hidden (same as what is made in “Searchable Image” mode).

*Adobe Reader 9 drops support for Adobe Reader Extensions 5 and 6 which permit Adobe Reader client software to save changes to filled-in forms in PDFs. Adobe Reader Extensions 6.1 and newer are still supported. Legacy PDFs will still be viewable, however they will open with the warning “This document enables Reader capabilities that are no longer enabled in this Reader version.”

*Support for MDI mode was disabled; Acrobat 9 only supports SDI.

*On March 10, 2009, Adobe Reader 9.1 was released which addresses a number of customer workflow issues and a critical security vulnerability while providing more stability.

*On May 12, 2009, Adobe Reader 9.1.1 was released which addresses two critical security vulnerabilities.

*On June 9, 2009, update version 9.1.2 was released which addresses a number of critical security vulnerabilities.

*On July 31, 2009, update version 9.1.3 was released which addresses a number of critical security vulnerabilities.

*On October 14, 2009, Adobe Acrobat 9.2 was released (added support for Windows 7 x86/x64 and fixed many security issues).

*On January 12, 2010, Adobe Reader 9.3 was released which addresses a number of critical security vulnerabilities.

*On February 16, 2010, Adobe Acrobat 9.3.1 was released which addresses two critical security vulnerabilities.

*On April 13, 2010, Adobe Acrobat 9.3.2 was released which addresses several critical security vulnerabilities.

*On June 29, 2010, Adobe Acrobat 9.3.3 was released which addresses several critical security vulnerabilities.

*On August 19, 2010, Adobe Acrobat 9.3.4 was released which addresses several critical security vulnerabilities.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Adobe Acrobat, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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ABAP is one of the many application-specific fourth-generation languages (4GLs) first developed in the 1980s. It was originally the report language for SAP R/2, a platform that enabled large corporations to build mainframe business applications for materials management and financial and management accounting.

ABAP used to be an abbreviation of ”Allgemeiner Berichtsaufbereitungsprozessor”, the German meaning of “generic report preparation processor” , but was later renamed to ”Advanced Business Application Programming”. ABAP was one of the first languages to include the concept of ”Logical Databases” (LDBs), which provides a high level of abstraction from the basic database level(s).

The ABAP programming language was originally used by developers to develop the SAP R/3 platform. It was also intended to be used by SAP customers to enhance SAP applications – customers can develop custom reports and interfaces with ABAP programming. The language is fairly easy to learn for programmers but it is not a tool for direct use by non-programmers. Good programming skills, including knowledge of relational database design and preferably also of object-oriented concepts, are required to create ABAP programs.

ABAP remains the language for creating programs for the client-server R/3 system, which SAP first released in 1992. As computer hardware evolved through the 1990s, more and more of SAP’s applications and systems were written in ABAP. By 2001, all but the most basic functions were written in ABAP. In 1999, SAP released an obj

SAP’s current development platform NetWeaver supports both ABAP and Java.

Where does the ABAP program run?

All ABAP programs reside inside the SAP database. They are not stored in separate external files like Java or C++ programs. In the database all ABAP code exists in two forms: source code, which can be viewed and edited with the ABAP Workbench tools, and generated code, a binary representation somewhat comparable with Java bytecode. ABAP programs execute under the control of the runtime system, which is part of the SAP kernel. The runtime system is responsible for processing ABAP statements, controlling the flow logic of screens and responding to events (such as a user clicking on a screen button); in this respect it can be seen as a Virtual Machine comparable with the Java VM. A key component of the ABAP runtime system is the Database Interface, which turns database-independent ABAP statements (“Open SQL”) into statements understood by the underlying DBMS (“Native SQL”). The database interface handles all the communication with the relational database on behalf of ABAP programs; it also contains extra features such as buffering of stable and frequently accessed data in the local memory of the application server.

SAP Basis

The ABAP language environment, including the syntax checking, code generation and runtime system, is part of the SAP Basis component. SAP Basis is the technological platform that supports the entire range of SAP applications, now typically implemented in the framework of the SAP Web Application Server. In that sense SAP Basis can be seen as the virtual machine on which SAP applications run. Like any operating system, SAP Basis contains both low-level services (for example memory management, database communication or servicing Web requests) and high-level tools for end users and administrators. These tools can be executables (“SAP kernel”) running directly on the underlying operating system, transactions developed in ABAP, or Web-based interfaces.

SAP Basis also provides a layer of abstraction between the business applications and the operating system and database. This ensures that applications do not depend directly upon a specific server or database platform and can easily be ported from one platform to another.

SAP Basis currently runs on UNIX (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, Linux), Microsoft Windows, i5/OS on IBM System i (formerly iSeries, AS/400) and z/OS on IBM System z (formerly zSeries, S/390). Supported databases are IBM DB2, Informix, MaxDB, Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server (support for Informix was discontinued in SAP Basis release 7.00).

SAP systems and landscapes

All SAP data exists and all SAP software runs in the context of an ”SAP system”. A system consists of a central relational database and one or more application servers (“instances”) accessing the data and programs in this database. An SAP system contains at least one instance but may contain more, mostly for reasons of sizing and performance. In a system with multiple instances, load balancing mechanisms ensure that the load is spread evenly over the available application servers.

Installations of the Web Application Server (”landscapes”) typically consist of three systems: one for development, one for testing and quality assurance, and one for production. The landscape may contain more systems, e.g. separate systems for unit testing and pre-production testing, or it may contain fewer, e.g. only development and production, without separate QA; nevertheless three is the most common configuration. ABAP programs are created and undergo first testing in the development system. Afterwards they are distributed to the other systems in the landscape. These actions take place under control of the Change and Transport System (CTS), which is responsible for concurrency control (e.g. preventing two developers from changing the same code at the same time), version management and deployment of programs on the QA and production systems.

The Web Application Server consists of three layers: the database layer, the application layer and the presentation layer. These layers may run on the same or on different physical machines. The ”database layer” contains the relational database and the database software. The ”application layer” contains the instance or instances of the system. All application processes, including the business transactions and the ABAP development, run on the application layer. The ”presentation layer” handles the interaction with users of the system. Online access to ABAP application servers can go via a proprietary graphical interface, the SAPGUI, or via a Web browser.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article ABAP, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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Although Sun was initially known as a hardware company, its software history began with its founding in 1982; co-founder Bill Joy was one of the leading Unix developers of the time, having already contributed the vi editor, the C shell, and significant work on the TCP/IP stack to the BSD Unix OS. Since then, Sun has developed and acquired other software, and become widely known for the Java programming language.

Sun is known for community-based and open-source licensing of its major technologies, and for its support of its products with other open source technologies. Sun offers GNOME-based desktop software called Java Desktop System (originally code-named “Madhatter”), first distributed as a Linux implementation but now offered as part of the Solaris operating system. It supports its Java Enterprise System (a middleware stack) on Linux. It has released the source code for Solaris under the open-source Common Development and Distribution License, via the OpenSolaris community. Sun’s positioning includes a commitment to indemnify users of some software from intellectual property disputes concerning that software. It offers support services on a variety of pricing bases, including per-employee and per-socket.

A report prepared for the EU by UNU-MERIT stated that Sun is the largest corporate contributor to open source movements in the world. According to this report, Sun’s open source contributions exceed the combined total of the next five largest commercial contributors.

Operating systems

Sun is most well known for its Unix systems, which ha

Sun’s first workstation shipped with UniSoft V7 Unix. Later in 1982 Sun began providing SunOS, a customized 4.1BSD Unix, as the operating system for its workstations.

In the late 1980s, AT&T tapped Sun to help them develop the next release of their branded UNIX, and in 1988 announced they would purchase up to a 20% stake in Sun. UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) was jointly developed by AT&T and Sun; this partnership triggered concern among Sun’s competitors, many of whom banded together to form the Open Software Foundation (OSF). By the mid-1990s, the ensuing Unix wars had largely subsided, AT&T had sold off their Unix interests, and the relationship between the two companies was significantly reduced.

Sun used SVR4 as the foundation for Solaris 2, which became the successor to SunOS.

From 1992 Sun also sold INTERACTIVE UNIX, an operating system it acquired when it bought INTERACTIVE Systems Corporation from Eastman Kodak Company. This was a popular UNIX variant for the PC platform and a major competitor to market leader SCO UNIX. Sun’s focus on INTERACTIVE UNIX diminished in favor of Solaris on both SPARC and x86 systems; it was dropped as a product in 2001.

In the past, Sun has offered a separate variant of Solaris called Trusted Solaris, which included augmented security features such as multilevel security and a least privilege access model. Solaris 10 included many of the same capabilities as Trusted Solaris when it was released in 2005; the Solaris 10 11/06 update included Solaris Trusted Extensions, which give it the remaining capabilities needed to make it the functional successor to Trusted Solaris.

Following several years of difficult competition and loss of server market share to competitors’ Linux-based systems, Sun began to include Linux as part of its strategy in 2002. Sun supports both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server on its x64 systems; companies such as Canonical Ltd., Wind River Systems and MontaVista also support their versions of Linux on Sun’s SPARC-based systems.

In 2004, Sun surprised the industry when, after having cultivated a reputation as one of Microsoft’s most vocal antagonists, it entered into a joint relationship with them, resolving various legal entanglements between the two companies and receiving US$1.95 billion in settlement payments from them. Sun now supports Microsoft Windows on its x64 systems, and has announced other collaborative agreements with Microsoft, including plans to support each others’ virtualization environments.

Java platform

The Java platform was developed at Sun in the early 1990s with the objective of allowing programs to function regardless of the device they were used on, sparking the slogan “Write once, run anywhere” (WORA). While this objective has not been entirely achieved (prompting the riposte “Write once, debug everywhere”), Java is regarded as being largely hardware- and operating system-independent.

Java was initially promoted as a platform for client-side ”applets” running inside web browsers. Early examples of Java applications were the HotJava web browser and the HotJava Views suite. However, since then Java has been more successful on the server side of the Internet.

The platform consists of three major parts, the Java programming language, the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and several Java Application Programming Interfaces. The design of the Java platform is controlled by the vendor and user community through the Java Community Process (JCP).

Java is an object-oriented programming language. Since its introduction in late 1995, it has become one of the world’s most popular programming languages.

In order to allow programs written in the Java language to be run on virtually any device, Java programs are compiled to byte code, which can be executed by any JVM, regardless of the environment.

The Java APIs provide an extensive set of library routines. These APIs have evolved into the ”Standard Edition”, which provides basic infrastructure and GUI functionality; the ”Enterprise Edition”, aimed at large software companies implementing enterprise-class application servers; and the ”Micro Edition”, used to build software for devices with limited resources, such as mobile devices.

On November 13, 2006, Sun announced that it would be licensing its Java implementation under the GNU General Public License;it released its Java compiler and JVM at that time.

In February 2009 Sun entered a battle with Microsoft and Adobe Systems, which are promoting rival platforms to build software applications for the Internet. JavaFX is a development platform for music, video and other applications that builds on the Java programming language.

Office suite

In 1999, Sun acquired the German software company StarDivision and with it StarOffice, which it released as the office suite OpenOffice.org under both GNU LGPL and the SISSL (Sun Industry Standards Source License). OpenOffice.org supports Microsoft Office file formats (though not perfectly), is available on many platforms (primarily Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris) and is widely used in the open source community.

The current StarOffice product is a closed-source product based on OpenOffice.org. The principal differences between StarOffice and OpenOffice.org are that StarOffice is supported by Sun, is available as either a single-user retail box kit or as per-user blocks of licensing for the enterprise, and includes a wider range of fonts and document templates and a commercial quality spellchecker. StarOffice also contains commercially licensed functions and add-ons; in OpenOffice.org these are either replaced by open-source or free variants, or are not present at all. Both packages have native support for the OpenDocument format.

Virtualization and datacenter automation software

In 2007, Sun announced the Sun xVM virtualization and datacenter automation product suite for commodity hardware. Sun also acquired VirtualBox in 2008. Earlier virtualization technologies from Sun like ”Dynamic System Domains” and ”Dynamic Reconfiguration” were specifically designed for high-end SPARC servers, and Logical Domains only supports the UltraSPARC T1/T2/T2 Plus server platforms. Sun also has the ”Sun Ops Center” provisioning software for datacenter automation.

On the client side, Sun offers virtual desktop solutions. Complete desktop environments and applications can be hosted in the datacenter, with users accessing these environments from a wide range of client devices, including Microsoft Windows PCs, Sun Ray virtual display clients, Apple Macintoshes, PDAs or any combination of supported devices. A variety of networks are supported, from LAN to WAN or the public Internet. A virtual desktop solution can be provided through Sun Ray Server Software, Sun Secure Global Desktop and Sun Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.

Database management systems

Sun acquired MySQL AB, the developer of the MySQL database in 2008 for US$ 1 billion. CEO Jonathan Schwartz mentioned in his blog that optimizing the performance of MySQL is one of the priorities of the acquisition. In February 2008, Sun began to publish results of the MySQL performance optimization work. Sun is also a contributor to the PostgreSQL project. On the Java platform, Sun contributes to, ships, and offers support for Java DB.

Other software

Sun offers a range of other software products for software development and infrastructure services. Many of these products were developed in house; others have come from a series of acquisitions, including Tarantella, Waveset Technologies, SeeBeyond, and Vaau. Sun also acquired many of the Netscape non-browser software products as part a deal involving Netscape’s merger with AOL. These software products were initially offered under the ”iPlanet” brand; once the Sun-Netscape alliance ended, they were re-branded as ”Sun ONE” (Sun Open Network Environment), and more recently as the ”Sun Java System”.

Today, Sun’s middleware stack is branded as the ”Java Enterprise System” (or JES), and fulfills web and application serving, as well as communication, calendaring, directory, identity management and SOA/business integration roles. Sun’s Open ESB and other software suites are available for download and use free of charge on systems running Solaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, HP-UX, and Windows, with support available optionally.

Sun has developed data center management software products, which include the ”Solaris Cluster” high availability software, and a grid management package called ”Sun Grid Engine” and firewall software such as SunScreen.

For the Network Equipment Providers and the telecommunications world, Sun developed the carrier-grade Netra High-Availability Suite.

Sun also produces a suite of compilers and development tools under the ”Sun Studio” brand, for building and developing Solaris and Linux applications.

Sun has recently entered the Software as a Service (SaaS) market with zembly, a social cloud-based computing platform and Project Kenai, an open-source project hosting service.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Sun Microsystems, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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