2004-11-27

OpenVMS DII COE Initiative

Because of its inherent qualities OpenVMS has been adopted by several worldwide government defense customers. In order to further reinforce its presence in the defense industry, Compaq has decided to start an ambitious project to allow OpenVMS to participate in U.S. defense bids. To do so, OpenVMS must be certified according to the specifications established by the U.S. government.

DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency) collected the requirements from the Army, Navy, Air Force, etc. and then created a platform-independent software environment called DII COE. DISA distributes this code to vendors and integrators for porting to various platforms, and also requires compliance to a set of industry standards and features.

In order to be COE compliant, OpenVMS must accomplish two main tasks:

Port the COE Kernel to OpenVMS

Satisfy DISA’s requirements listed in their certification process

Moreover, Compaq will modify OpenVMS to make its APIs closer to UNIX interfaces and therefore ease the porting of the COE Kernel that was originally developed on UNIX platforms. Those new interfaces will be native to the operating system and the C RunTime libraries.

On August 10, 2001, the first OpenVMS COE kit (V7.2-6C1) was released.

The OpenVMS DII COE Version 7.2-6C1 software package includes a new version of the OpenVMS operating system, layered products, freeware, and software produced by the U.S. Department of Defense through its Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

This software is know as Defense Information Infrastructure Common Operating Environment (DII COE) Kernel. The DII COE Kernel is a software client/server environment that provides interoperability and connectivity across multiple platforms in a simple intuitive interface allowing for management of accounts, security policy, systems, storage, application installations, and networks.

OpenVMS DII COE Version 7.2-6C1 offers a complete set of tools and solutions for users in the U.S. Department of Defense environment and is required for participation in government bids.

Due to the export restriction imposed by the Department of Defense (DoD), distribution is limited to key U.S. defense customers and partners.

We are already planning to include all the modifications made in the base operating system and CRTL in future mainstream releases of OpenVMS.

We are already working on the following release V7.2-6C2 , that we are planning to release in Q2 of 2002.

This is the version that will be used for the official DII COE certification. We are maintaining continuous contacts and talk with the DoD agency (DISA) in charge of DII COE and its certifications process.

Features like UNIX APIs will be made available in general OpenVMS releases at a later time (e.g. V7.4 or later).

Government bids may require a 20 year commitment to the operating environment, and Compaq is ready to provide this commitment for OpenVMS.