🚀 go-pugleaf

I recieved this message from Paul Grous, and am posting the
reply to the net.

| From uunet!lotus!pgrous Thu Nov  9 08:38:37 1989
|  
| [....]
|
| ... can you tell me why Named Pipes are restricted to essentially  
| only being used by servers?  Why can't a workstation service a np across 
| the net?  To me, I see this as a severe limitation.  Don't you?  True   
| peer-to-peer communication would be possible.  God, even NetBIOS gives us
| that capability, (as painful as it may be).  Are there any plans to
| change this in the near/far future?

Some clarifications for the world at large:  Paul is
correct that LM 1.0 workstations cannot "service" (i.e.
originate, create) a named pipe. They can OPEN a pipe.  But
you can't have workstation-to-workstation pipes in LAN
Manager 1.0.

Brief reply:  named pipes are restricted to servers, because
the server software is the component which manages
sessions, external security, and handles remote file I/O
request.  This is logical since pipe I/O (for the client)
is much like file I/O and thus is handled (mostly) in the
same place.  Of course to some extent this is a high-level
abstraction but you get the idea.

On Monday 11/6/89 Microsoft announced LM 2.0 which includes
Peer Services.  This provides an OS/2 workstation with the
ability to service one client at a time with print and disk
services.  For example you can now allow users to get files
directly from your workstation instead of copying the files
to some server.  And you can allow selected users, ONE AT A
TIME, to access your personal nuclear-powered full-color
256-page/second laser printer.  :)

Importantly, it allows unlimited IPC (Inter-Process
Communication) clients.  Unlimited except for normal design
and implementation limits, of course.  But this gives all
OS/2 stations the option of being full IPC peers, for both
pipe and mailslots.  To a remote client, your "Peer
Services" workstation looks like a server, which provides
pipes and *limited* disk/print services.

Key points:

        Peer Services is optional on OS/2 1.2 workstations.

        Peer Services is "free" in that you do not have to buy
          an additional server license.  It is part of the
          normal *workstation* license.  It comes in the box.

        Peer Services looks like a server.  Server-side apps
          like SQL-Server can run on this platform!  So your
          client-server-model apps are portable and easily
          distributed.

I just reviewed the above, and I am sorry if this sounds
like a sell job.  What I am trying to do is to communicate
that pipes become more widely peer-to-peer in LAN Manager
2.0, and I don't know how to do that w/o the about "product
info" text.

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DISCLAIMER:  I work for Microsoft, but this is my opinion and not
that of Microsoft Corp.