A UNIX-based gateway to distributed database systems

During the 1960s and 1970s, corporate productivity was significantly enhanced by the development of database systems to meet immediate corporate needs. During the 1980s, the computing focus has been on integrating these systems into corporate networks and removing manual functions by initiating host-to-host communications. Where all involved systems are provided by the same vendor, this vendor typically provides a networking solution to meet these needs. In those cases where database systems have been developed on hosts from multiple vendors, the corporate network is more difficult to implement. This is especially true when minicomputers are involved. This paper describes a gateway system which is designed to allow dissimilar systems to establish host-to-host communications. The key capability in this system is the ability to perform protocol translation across all seven layers of the ISO reference model as opposed to the traditional link and physical layers.