NOVELL LAUNCHES ITS NEXT GENERATION OPEN TRANSACTION PROCESSING MONITOR -- TUXEDO SYSTEM 6.1

New Release Enables Customers to Quickly Develop and Deploy Client/Server Applications Across the Smart Global Network

Florham Park, NJ--October 31, 1995--Novell, Inc. today announced the availability of TUXEDO® System 6.1, the next generation of its market-leading transaction processing monitor and the most powerful and flexible middleware solution for client/server network computing. TUXEDO System 6.1 includes an array of new features and enhancements to enable customers to easily develop, reliably deploy, and cost-effectively manage mission-critical applications distributed across client/server networks.

Designed to support applications critical to finance, manufacturing, retail management, online information services, new forms of electronic commerce, and many other industries, TUXEDO System 6.1 runs across multiple platforms and supports open APIs to help customers make a smooth transition to client/server networks. The expanded customer benefits of TUXEDO System 6.1 include:

• Improved application management through a new visual user interface for centrally configuring, monitoring and managing distributed applications;
• Powerful communication capabilities for mission-critical applications through new Event Broker services based on the Publish/Subscribe paradigm. These services provide a fast and efficient way to create event-based communications, enabling businesses to trigger a series of processing steps across multiple applications in response to pre-specified events;
• Enhanced network security through Access Control Lists (ACLs), which provide user or group-level authorization to individual TUXEDO services.

TUXEDO is a central part of Novell's strategy to extend distributed network services and APIs to support applications running across diverse client and server platforms on the Smart Global Network. As the market's leading open transaction monitor, TUXEDO runs on more than 35 major server platforms and can be accessed from virtually any intelligent client.

"TUXEDO System 6.1 is a jewel in Novell's network services crown," said speaker TBD. "TUXEDO plays a critical role in our strategy to build the Smart Global Network by supporting client/server applications that can be accessed anytime, anyplace. The advanced application management, communication and security services in TUXEDO System 6.1 provide our customers with command and control of mission-critical applications at a level once limited to mainframes-- at a fraction of the cost."

Enhanced Application Management

TUXEDO's application management system has been architected from the inside out to provide the necessary system instrumentation and control to manage distributed systems, including a Management Information Base of data on network devices, programming interfaces and tools for building customized administration consoles. End users and independent software vendors can choose between TUXEDO's visual user interface or adding application management capabilities to their existing applications using TUXEDO's management APIs.

Future enhancements will include standard SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocols) agents for popular management consoles such as Hewlett-Packard's Openview and Operations Center, IBM's NetView, and BMC Software's Patrol.

"We believe the new capabilities of TUXEDO System 6.1 strengthen HP's ability to deliver open on-line transaction processing to the marketplace," said Carol G. Mills, general manager of Hewlett-Packard's General Systems Division.

"As a leading provider of application and data management solutions, BMC Software has more than a decade of experience in managing multiple technologies in a functionally rich and integrated manner," said Leland Putterman, vice president of worldwide marketing for BMC Software. "Novell's release of TUXEDO System 6, with its advanced management infrastructure, will allow us to provide additional depth of monitoring, as well as more automated management for TUXEDO through BMC Software's application management product suite, PATROL."

Event Broker -- New Publish/Subscribe Communications Paradigm

The TUXEDO event broker is the industry's only Publish/Subscribe middleware that is fully integrated into the entire communications infrastructure, including application services, queues, and events. The Event Broker provides a standard method for creating event-based communication, reducing the time and cost of incorporating custom functionality into mission-critical applications and increasing the efficiency and scalability of client/server solutions. Customers and developers can utilize the Event Broker or choose from a broad array of conventional communications paradigms for application design supported by TUXEDO: Synchronous Remote Procedure Call ( RPC); Asynchronous Request/Response; Request Forwarding; Broadcast; Reliable Queuing; and Conversations.

Security

TUXEDO's security is fully integrated with its enhanced application management and Event Broker. This enables system administrators to configure or reconfigure the security parameters for a distributed system through a central management panel. Any attempts to violate security within a TUXEDO application will generate an event, which may be displayed by the system's VUI. In addition, authorized applications may subscribe to such events in order to provide customized actions when the security violations are attempted.

Availability and Pricing

Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL), is the world's leading networking software provider. Novell software provides the infrastructure for a networked world, enabling our customers to connect with other people and the information they need, anytime and anyplace. Novell partners with other technology and market leaders to help customers make networks a part of their everyday lives.

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