This text file is available through our website at: http://www.transarc.com __________________________________________________ The Navigator A Newsletter for the Decorum'96 Conference Issue 1 Contents: Looking Towards Decorum'96 A Look Back at Decorum'95 Call For Participation Reply Card for More Information Looking Towards Decorum'96 Mark your calendars for Decorum'96. This year's conference has been scheduled for February 27-29, 1996 at the Innisbrook Hilton Resort in Tarpon Springs, FL. Innisbrook is on the Gulf Coast, about 35 minutes from the Tampa airport. In continuing with the Decorum tradition, user presentations will be the highlight of Decorum'96. With the number of DCE and Encina deployments growing at an amazing rate, attendees will hear from organizations gaining a competitive advantage with DCE- and Encina-based applications. Our file systems products will also be well represented, including topics covering both AFS and DCE DFS. Formal sessions and informal discussions set the stage for sharing information and exchanging ideas - no better networking forum exists. And don't forget that DCE and Encina vendors are at Decorum'96. This is an opportunity to influence the course of future products and services. Even with a full three-days of sessions, there is always time for some fun. The Decorum welcoming reception draws rave reviews from attendees, and this year will be no exception. Innisbrook is a full-service resort with entertainment for everyone: championship golf courses, tennis and racquetball courts, swimming pools and more. Minutes away are Gulf beaches, deep-sea fishing, and the picturesque Greek fishing village of Tarpon Springs. Other area attractions include Busch Gardens and Walt Disney World. So plan on arriving early or extending your visit following the conference. Stay tuned for more information on Decorum'96. See you in Florida! A Look Back at Decorum'95 On February 7-9, 1995, over 700 customers, system providers and independent software vendors gathered together in La Jolla, CA for Decorum'95,the largest DCE end-user conference ever. Over 200 different organizations were represented; with participants from Telecommunications, Manufacturing, Transportation, Finance, Retail, Entertainment, Medical, Government, Research and Education. The majority of attendees represented end-user organizations, with 80% currently developing or deploying DCE and/or Encina-based applications. The Decorum Conference enables current and future uses of AFS, DFS, DCE and Encina to share information and gain product knowledge through a five-track conference program, nightly Birds-Of-A-Feather informal discussions and a two-day Product Demonstration Center. Philip Gill describes Decorum'95 in more detail in an article appearing in Uniforum Monthly, May 1995: * Besides technical sessions on products, the real highlights of the program were about 40 users who discussed their DCE and Encina efforts, most for the first time publicly. Among those speaking up about their production DCE applications was US West, the Denver-based Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC), which recently went into production with its Integrated Network Inventory (INI) system in a three-tier, distributed client/server network that includes Hewlett-Packard and Sun servers, IBM mainframes, X terminals, DOS/Windows PCs, Macintoshes, and, in the words of Chris House, a senior member of the technical staff, "just about every other major brand of computer out there." INI provides an on-line, transaction-oriented inventory of US West's equipment and wiring, including that at customer homes. It also incorporates a knowledge base that can answer questions such as not just what kind of wires are in a particular location, but what will be needed to install broadband cable at that location. It replaces a legacy inventory application that ran on a proprietary Unisys mainframe. Desktop clients communicate to HP UNIX application servers, where a layer of INI services and a synonyms database both reside. Pointers in the synonyms database direct client requests to the appropriate database servers, usually Sequent Computer Symmetry systems, for processing. DCE provides the glue to hold these disparate systems together, while Oracle's relational database management system and Transarc's Encina monitor support database applications and distributed TP, respectively. Another user organization speaking up was MEMC Electronics Materials of St. Peters, MO. The firm says that, at $600 million in annual sales, it is the world's largest supplier of silicon wafers for the semiconductor industry. It is also one of the earliest DCE users to go live with a production application, which has been up and running since last July, but about which it has not spoken publicly before now. MEMC migrated its key mission-critical application, a customer order, planning, and scheduling system, from an IBM mainframe MVS/CICS environment to four IBM RS/6000s running IBM's CICS/6000 over the AIX UNIX operating system. The result is its new Customer Order Management, Planning, Analysis, Scheduling, and Specification (COMPASS) system. CICS/6000 is based on Transarc's DCE and Encina services. According to Ed Wehner, manager of business systems, MEMC has saved an estimated $1 million in mainframe costs, while boosting customer service and improving user response times. Decorum'96 will be filled with even more customer success stories. Make sure you continue to receive Decorum mailings by filling out the postage-paid reply card on the right, or send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Used with permission of Uniforum Monthly. Copyright 1995. Decorum'96: Call For Participation February 27-29, 1996 Innisbrook Hilton Resort Tarpon Springs, FL Transarc Corporation is pleased to announce Decorum'96, the annual gathering for technical professionals involved in the implementation of client/server computing solutions. The meeting is designed to assist Transarc customers and third-party partners as they incorporate client/server products --including AFS 3, Encina, DCE, DFS -- into their business plans. We are particulary interested in customer stories including site profiles exploring how a particular product is deployed within a production environment. Those wishing to participate should provide a title and short abstract (50-75 words), with the following information: *Name, company affiliation, title *Postal and e-mail addresses *Phone and fax numbers Submissions may be made by e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (preferred method), or by hard copy mail to: Transarc Decorum'96 707 Grant Street Pittsburgh, PA 15219 Important Dates October 16, 1995: Final date for submissions October 30, 1995: Acceptance notification to submitters January 5, 1996: Completed slides due
