UNIX for transaction processing and DP

[Holtman Jim]

> It's definitely possible to have such applications running for smaller
> systems. The company I used to work for put out a Dibol compiler for quite
> few different UNIX systems. The main use for Dibol is transactions and DP.
> One company switched their entire reservation package from the TSX
> system to UNIX running on AT&T 7300s. We had (they have) other customers
> buying the compiler for UNIX systems, too.

I have several hundred UNIX(tm) systems in the field that run s
transaction/data base system. This is running both on PD 11/70s
and VAX 8600. We support a DBMS that has record locking,
concurrency and recovery. We support 30-50 BISYNC lines on an
11/70s. If you would like more details on this system, see the
July-August 1982 (Vol 61, no. 6, part 2) issue of the Bell System
Technical Journal.

On the 11/70s, we are processing about a transaction/second (5
reads/5 writes), while at the same time handling all the BISYNC
lines without the aid of KMCs or external processors. All the
short comings of UNIX as a transaction base have been overcome in
our implementation. We do not use the UNIX file system; our DBMS
uses raw I/O. New drivers were added to support the BISYNC lines
(we are both master and slave - we can be a 3271 controller to an
IBM host) and the management of shared memory was enhanced.

The system has now been ported to an 8600 and make a fairly
impressive system when you consider that we are probably handling
on the order of 800-900 users on the system.