Specifications

OpenVMS VAX Operating System, Version 5.5-2 SPD 25.01.37
Volume Shadowing for OpenVMS is a VMS System Inte-
grated Product (SIP) that is separately licensed. Volume
Shadowing for OpenVMS provides high data availability
for disk storage devices by ensuring against data loss
resulting from media deterioration or through controller
or device failure. This prevents storage subsystem com-
ponent failures from interrupting system or application
operation.
The system disk and Files–11 On-Disk Structure 2
(ODS2) data disks can be volume shadowed.
The Volume Shadowing for OpenVMS product supports
shadowing of all MSCP-compliant DSA disks and all
Digital SCSI disks. All disks in a single shadow set must
have the same physical geometry and can be located
on a single system or anywhere in a VAXcluster sys-
tem. Disks can be configured on any MSCP or Digital
SCSI compliant controller; this includes HSC-series con-
trollers, local controllers, DSSI Integrated Storage Ele-
ments, and VMS MSCP Served DSA devices. Nonlocal
disks can be accessed using any of the supported VAX-
cluster interconnects (CI, DSSI, Ethernet, FDDI, and
mixed).
Volume Shadowing for OpenVMS provides fault toler-
ance resulting from disk media errors or controller er-
rors across the full range of VAX processors and con-
figurations. Shadow set member units can be located
on different controllers and VMS MSCP servers, pro-
viding configuration flexibility and a high degree of data
availability.
Refer to SPD 27.29.xx for more information.
VMS DECwindows Motif™
Digital offers a separately orderable layered product
called VMS DECwindows Motif™. VMS DECwindows
Motif provides support for both OSF/Motif™, an open
standard that is the new default user interface, and the
X User Interface in a single run-time and development
environment. Because both Motif and XUI are based on
MIT’s X Window System, applications written to either
toolkit continue to run regardless of which environment
the user selects. Refer to the VMS DECwindows Motif
SPD (SPD 36.09.xx) for more information.
VMS DECwindows Environment
Integral to VMS is support for the VMS DECwindows
desktop environment. VMS DECwindows is based on
MIT’s specification for the X Window System, Version
11, Release 3, and is delivered as a component of the
VMS Operating System. X Window System standards
supported as part of DECwindows include the X11 net-
work protocol, a base set of workstation fonts, the C lan-
guage binding for the Xlib programming library, and the
C language binding for the Xtoolkit library. Also featured
within DECwindows for workstation users is support for
Adobe’s Display PostScript integrated into X11.
Support of the X11 network protocol in the client library,
and display server components provides VMS with the
ability to interoperate with other X11-compliant systems
in a distributed fashion.
DECwindows supports the client-server distribution in-
herent in the X Window System, with three VMS-
provided transport interfaces — local shared memory,
DECnet, and TCP/IP (using Digital’s VMS/ULTRIX Con-
nection (UCX) layered product). Users can also provide
their own transport subsystems and transport interfaces.
To determine whether a separately orderable DECwin-
dows or X application runs on or can communicate with
a VMS DECwindows system, consult the application’s
Software Product Description.
The DECwindows desktop environment provides a
graphical user interface to VMS. This user interface de-
fines a powerful model for interacting with the VMS Op-
erating System using a point and click metaphor. It
includes a set of integrated desktop applications that
demonstrate the power of this new metaphor and that
provide VMS users with a base set of desktop tools.
The user environment consists of four basic compo-
nents:
1. The Session Manager provides the top-level user in-
terface to a DECwindows workstation. It performs
application activation, session-wide customization,
screen printing, security management, and session
control. The session manager also allows users to
specify the language in which DECwindows should
run, provided that a VMS DECwindows language
variant kit has been ordered and installed.
2. The Window Manager provides user control for man-
aging windows.
3. FileView is a graphical interface to VMS file manage-
ment that allows users to navigate through the VMS
file system and perform operations on files.
4. The DECterm terminal emulator provides worksta-
tion users with a traditional character cell interface
for existing VMS features and applications. It is a
ReGIS and sixel compatible VT320 terminal emula-
tor. Programs written for VT52, VT100, VT220, or
VT320-class terminals and using VMS terminal driver
features operate without modification in this work-
station window. DECterm also provides workstation-
oriented features such as mouse-based cursor posi-
tioning, variable screen sizes, and cutting and past-
ing of text between terminal emulators and other
DECwindows applications.
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