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62-520: With about 185 IBM employees working for the LTC in 1999, this number grew steadily to about 600 in 2006, 300 of whom worked full-time on Linux. In December 2000, IBM claimed to have invested approximately one billion US dollars in Linux by the year 2000, and to currently have about 1,500 developers working on the alternative operating system. It announced that it would invest a similar amount in 2001 and also build

124-512: A beta test version of AIX 5L for the IA-64 ( Itanium ) architecture in 2001, but this never became an official product due to lack of interest. The Apple Network Server (ANS) systems were PowerPC-based systems designed by Apple Computer to have numerous high-end features that standard Apple hardware did not have, including swappable hard drives, redundant power supplies, and external monitoring capability. These systems were more or less based on

186-525: A codec , most lines are on two-stage analog space-division concentrators or Line Units , which connect as many as 512 lines, as needed, to the 8 Channel card s that each contain 8 codecs, and to high-level service circuits for ringing and testing. Both stages of concentration are included on the same GDX (Gated Diode Access) board. Each GDX board serves 32 lines, 16 A links and 32 B links. Limited availability saves money with incompletely filled matrixes. The Line Unit can have up to 16 GDX boards connecting to

248-527: A Text Formatting System package priced at $ 200. The TCP/IP stack for AIX PS/2 retailed for another $ 300. The X Window System package was priced at $ 195, and featured a graphical environment called the AIXwindows Desktop , based on IXI's X.desktop . The C and FORTRAN compilers each had a price tag of $ 275. Locus also made available their DOS Merge virtual machine environment for AIX, which could run MS DOS 3.3 applications inside AIX; DOS Merge

310-540: A contentious move that resulted in v3 containing no PL.8 code and being somewhat more "pure" than v2. Other notable subsystems included: In addition, AIX applications can run in the PASE subsystem under IBM i . IBM formerly made the AIX for RS/6000 source code available to customers for an additional fee; in 1991, IBM customers could order the AIX 3.0 source code for a one-time charge of US$ 60,000; subsequently, IBM released

372-675: A digital one to serve all of the switch's lines when many wouldn't require it and would remain POTS lines. An example would be the (former) GTE/Verizon Class-5 telephone switch , the GTD-5 EAX . Like the Western Electric 1ESS /1AESS, it served mostly medium to large wire centers. The standalone VCDX was also capable of serving as a switch for very small wire centers (a CDX- Community dial office ) of fewer than ~400 lines. However, for small wire centers, 400-4000 lines, that function

434-447: A file had actually changed, before updating the build output directory tree. This provided a huge reduction in build time when a core library or header was being edited. A developer could add values to an enum, but if that did not change the build output, then subsequent dependencies on that output would not have to be relinked or libraries built. The system is administered through an assortment of teletypewriter "channels", also called

496-712: Is a database of system information integrated into AIX, analogous to the registry in Microsoft Windows . A good understanding of the ODM is essential for managing AIX systems. Data managed in ODM is stored and maintained as objects with associated attributes . Interaction with ODM is possible via application programming interface (API) library for programs, and command-line utilities such as odmshow , odmget , odmadd , odmchange and odmdelete for shell scripts and users. SMIT and its associated AIX commands can also be used to query and modify information in

558-813: Is a worldwide team with main locations in Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Israel, and the United States. This business-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Linux -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . AIX AIX (pronounced / ˌ eɪ . aɪ . ˈ ɛ k s / ay-eye- EKS ) is a series of proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM since 1986. The name stands for "Advanced Interactive eXecutive". Current versions are designed to work with Power ISA based server and workstation computers such as IBM's Power line. Originally released for

620-466: Is built on the 3B21D platform and is used to load software to the many microprocessors throughout the switch and to provide high speed control functions. It provides messaging and interface to control terminals. The AM of a 5ESS consists of the 3B20x or 3B21D processor unit, including I/O, disks, and tape drive units. Once the 3B21D has loaded the software into the 5ESS and the switch is activated, packet switching takes place without further action by

682-714: Is certified to the UNIX 03 and UNIX V7 specifications of the Single UNIX Specification , beginning with AIX versions 5.3 and 7.2 TL5, respectively. Older versions were certified to the UNIX 95 and UNIX 98 specifications. AIX was the first operating system to implement a journaling file system . IBM has continuously enhanced the software with features such as processor, disk, and network virtualization , dynamic hardware resource allocation (including fractional processor units), and reliability engineering concepts derived from its mainframe designs. Unix began in

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744-509: Is connected via coax from a MUX unit and fed to a TRCU which converts the coax to connection to the DLI, There was also a two-mile ORM that was used when an office was broken out or took an area from another office. The distance on this was 2 miles from a host office and fed direct via fiber. As with any SM, the size is dictated by the number of time slots needed for each peripheral unit. ORM's are linked with DS3, RSM's are linked with T1 lines. The VCDX

806-472: Is distributed as –48 VDC (nominal), and converted locally to logic levels or telephone signals. Each Switching Module (SM) handles several hundred to a few thousand telephone lines or several hundred trunks or combination thereof. Each has its own processors , also called Module Controllers, which perform most call handling processes , using their own memory boards. Originally the peripheral processors were to be Intel 8086 , but those proved inadequate and

868-537: Is the System Management Interface Tool for AIX. It allows a user to navigate a menu hierarchy of commands, rather than using the command line. Invocation is typically achieved with the command smit . Experienced system administrators make use of the F6 function key which generates the command line that SMIT will invoke to complete it. SMIT also generates a log of commands that are performed in

930-469: The smit.script file. The smit.script file automatically records the commands with the command flags and parameters used. The smit.script file can be used as an executable shell script to rerun system configuration tasks. SMIT also creates the smit.log file, which contains additional detailed information that can be used by programmers in extending the SMIT system. smit and smitty refer to

992-470: The 4ESS . Approximately half of all US central offices are served by 5ESS switches. The 5ESS was also exported, and manufactured outside the US under license. The 5ESS–2000 version, introduced in the 1990s, increased the capacity of the switching module (SM), with more peripheral modules and more optical links per SM to the communications module (CM). A follow-on version, the 5ESS–R/E, was in development during

1054-488: The C language , with 100 million lines of header files and makefiles . Evolution of the system took place over 20 years, while three releases were often being developed simultaneously, each taking about three years to complete. The 5ESS was originally U.S.-only and the international sales resulted in a complete development system and team, in parallel to the U.S. version. The development systems were Unix-based mainframe systems. There were around 15 of these systems active at

1116-630: The IBM RT PC RISC workstation in 1986, AIX has supported a wide range of hardware platforms, including the IBM RS/6000 series and later Power and PowerPC -based systems, IBM System i , System/370 mainframes, PS/2 personal computers, and the Apple Network Server . Currently, it is supported on IBM Power Systems alongside IBM i and Linux . AIX is based on UNIX System V with 4.3BSD -compatible extensions. It

1178-687: The Power Macintosh hardware available at the time but were designed to use AIX (versions 4.1.4 or 4.1.5) as their native operating system in a specialized version specific to the ANS called AIX for Apple Network Servers. AIX was only compatible with the Network Servers and was not ported to standard Power Macintosh hardware. It should not be confused with A/UX , Apple's earlier version of Unix for 68k -based Macintoshes . The release of AIX version 3 (sometimes called AIX/6000 ) coincided with

1240-816: The Time-Slot-Interchangers (TSI) in the Switching Modules assign each phone call to a time slot for routing through the CM. CMs perform time-divided switching and are provided in pairs; each module (cabinet) belonging to Office Network and Timing Complex (ONTC) 0 or 1, roughly corresponding to the switch planes of other designs. Each SM has four optical fiber links, two connecting to a CM belonging to ONTC 0 and two to ONTC 1. Each optical link consists of two multimode optical fibers with ST connectors to plug into transceivers plugged into backplane wiring at each end. CMs receive time-multiplexed signals on

1302-751: The system console , such as the TEST channel and the Maintenance channel. Typically provisioning is done either through a command line interface (CLI) called RCV:APPTEXT, or through the menu-driven RCV:MENU,APPRC program. RCV stands for Recent Change/Verification, and can be accessed through the Switching Control Center System . Most service orders, however, are administered through the Recent Change Memory Administration Center (RCMAC). In

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1364-403: The 3B21D, except for billing functions requiring records to be transferred to disk for storage. Because the processor has duplex hardware, one active side, and one standby side, a failure of one side of the processor will not necessarily result in a loss of switching. The Communications Module (CM) forms the central time switch of the exchange. 5ESS uses a time-space-time (TST) topology in which

1426-470: The AIX 3.1 source code in 1992, and AIX 3.2 in 1993. These source code distributions excluded certain files (authored by third-parties) which IBM did not have rights to redistribute, and also excluded layered products such as the MS-DOS emulator and the C compiler. Furthermore, in order to be able to license the AIX source code, the customer first had to procure source code license agreements with AT&T and

1488-590: The Communications Modules for time-divided switching to other SMs. These links may be short, for example within the same building, or may connect to SMs in remote locations. Calls among the lines and trunks of a particular SM needn't go through CM, and an SM located remotely can act as distributed switching , administered from the central AM. Each SM has two Module Controller/ Time Slot Interchange (MCTSI) circuits for redundancy. In contrast to Nortel 's DMS-100 which uses individual line cards with

1550-584: The IMR (initial modification request) system which had purely numeric identifiers. An MR name was created with subsystem prefix, IMR number, MR sequence characters, and a character for the release or "load". So, for the gr (generic retrofit) subsystem, the first MR created for the 2371242 IMR, destined for the 'F' load, would be gr2371242aF. The build system used a simple mechanism of build configuration that would cause makefile generation to occur. The system always built everything, but used checksum results to decide if

1612-537: The ODM. ODM is stored on disk using Berkeley DB files. Example of information stored in the ODM database are: 5ESS switch The 5ESS Switching System is a Class 5 telephone electronic switching system developed by Western Electric for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) and the Bell System in the United States. It came into service in 1982 and the last unit

1674-563: The S/370 platform to be used as a build host for the 5ESS switch 's software. During this process, IBM made modifications to the TSS/370 Resident Supervisor to better support Unix. In 1984, IBM introduced its own Unix variant for the S/370 platform called VM/IX, developed by Interactive Systems Corporation using Unix System III. However, VM/IX was only available as a PRPQ (Programming Request for Price Quotation) and

1736-654: The SM, including tone generation and detection. Global Digital Service Units (GDSU) provide less-frequently used services to the entire exchange. The Time Slot Interchanger (TSI) in the SM uses random-access memory to delay each speech sample to fit into a time slot which will carry its call through the exchange to another or, in some cases, the same SM. T-carrier spans are terminated, originally one per card but in later models usually two, in Digital Line Trunk Units (DLTU) which concentrate their DS0 channels into

1798-590: The TSI. These may serve either interoffice trunks or, using Integrated Subscriber Loop Carrier , subscriber lines. Higher-capacity DS3 signals can also have their DS0 signals switched in Digital Network Unit SONET (DNUS) units, without demultiplexing them into DS1 . Newer SM's have DNUS (DS3) and Optical OIU interfaces (OC12) with a large amount of capacity. SMs have Dual Link Interface (DLI) cards to connect them by multi-mode optical fibers to

1860-714: The United States and elsewhere, but they are being replaced with more modern packet switching systems. 5ESS switches in service in 2021 also included several operated by the United States Navy. The 5ESS switch has three main types of modules: the Administrative Module (AM) contains the central computers; the Communications Module (CM) is the central time-divided switch of the system; and the Switching Module (SM) makes up

1922-502: The University of California, Berkeley. The default shell was Bourne shell up to AIX version 3, but was changed to KornShell (ksh88) in version 4 for XPG4 and POSIX compliance. The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is AIX's default graphical user interface . As part of Linux Affinity and the free AIX Toolbox for Linux Applications (ATLA), open-source KDE Plasma Workspaces and GNOME desktop are also available. SMIT

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1984-664: The VCDX's Administrative Module. The VCDX uses the CO 's normal telephone power sources (which are very large uninterruptible power supplies ), and has connections to the CO Digital cross connect system for T1 access, etc. The 5ESS has two different signaling architectures: Common Network Interface (CNI) Ring and Packet Switching Unit (PSU)-based SS7 Signaling . The development effort for 5ESS required five thousand employees, producing 100 million lines of system source code, mostly in

2046-419: The announcement of the first POWER1 -based IBM RS/6000 models in 1990. AIX v3 innovated in several ways on the software side. It was the first operating system to introduce the idea of a journaling file system , JFS , which allowed for fast boot times by avoiding the need to ensure the consistency of the file systems on disks (see fsck ) on every reboot. Another innovation was shared libraries which avoid

2108-445: The central and peripheral processor software and translations. Disk drives were originally several 300 megabyte SMD multi-platter units in a separate frame. Now they consist of several redundant multi-gigabyte SCSI drives that each reside on a card. Tape drives were originally half inch open reel at 6250 bits per inch, which were replaced in the early 1990s with 4 mm Digital Audio Tape cassettes. The Administrative Module

2170-473: The channel boards by shared B links, but in offices with heavier traffic for lines a lesser number of GDX boards are equipped. ISDN lines are served by individual line cards in an ISLU (Integrated Services Line Unit). The Administrative Module (AM) is a dual-processor mini main frame computer of the AT&;T 3B series , running UNIX-RTR . AM contains the hard drives and tape drives used to load and backup

2232-592: The distinction of being built on top of SNA, and thereby being fully compatible with DS on IBM mainframe systems and on midrange systems running OS/400 through IBM i . For the graphical user interfaces, AIX v2 came with the X10R3 and later the X10R4 and X11 versions of the X Window System from MIT, together with the Athena widget set . Compilers for Fortran and C were available. AIX PS/2 (also known as AIX/386 )

2294-525: The early 1970s at AT&T 's Bell Labs research center, running on DEC minicomputers . By 1976, the operating system was used in various academic institutions, including Princeton , where Tom Lyon and others ported it to the S/370 to run as a guest OS under VM/370 . This port later grew into UTS , a mainframe Unix offering from IBM's competitor Amdahl Corporation . IBM's involvement with Unix began in 1979 when it assisted Bell Labs in porting Unix to

2356-595: The first commercial RISC chip. This was based on a design pioneered at IBM Research (the IBM 801 ). One of the novel aspects of the RT design was the use of a microkernel , called Virtual Resource Manager (VRM). The keyboard, mouse, display, disk drives and network were all controlled by a microkernel. One could "hotkey" from one operating system to the next using the Alt-Tab key combination. Each OS in turn would get possession of

2418-623: The host operating system, and as a guest under VM . AIX/ESA, while technically advanced, had little commercial success, partially because UNIX functionality was added as an option to the existing mainframe operating system, MVS , as MVS/ESA SP Version 4 Release 3 OpenEdition in 1994, and continued as an integral part of MVS/ESA SP Version 5, OS/390 and z/OS, with the name eventually changing from OpenEdition to Unix System Services . IBM also provided OpenEdition in VM/ESA Version 2 through z/VM. As part of Project Monterey , IBM released

2480-504: The keyboard, mouse and display. Besides AIX v2, the PICK OS also included this microkernel. Much of the AIX v2 kernel was written in the PL.8 programming language, which proved troublesome during the migration to AIX v3. AIX v2 included full TCP/IP networking, as well as SNA and two networking file systems: NFS , licensed from Sun Microsystems , and Distributed Services (DS). DS had

2542-410: The largest Linux-based supercomputer for Royal Dutch/Shell Oil. While most of the money was invested in Linux development, some of it went into others, mainly AIX . The following year, senior vice president Bill Zeitler claimed to have recouped most of this spending in the first year through the sale of software and systems. Developers in the LTC contribute to various open-source projects such as: LTC

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2604-505: The late 1990s but did not reach market. Another version was the 5E–XC. The 5ESS technology was transferred to the AT&T Network Systems division upon the 1984 breakup of the Bell System. The division was divested by AT&T in 1996 as Lucent Technologies , and after becoming Alcatel-Lucent in 2006, it was acquired by Nokia in 2016. The 5ESS switch is still in widespread use in the public switched telephone network (PSTN) in

2666-506: The majority of the equipment in most exchanges. The SM performs multiplexing, analog and digital coding, and other work to interface with external equipment. Each has a controller, a small computer with duplicated CPUs and memories, like most common equipment of the exchange, for redundancy. Distributed systems lessen the load on the Central Administrative Module (AM) or main computer. Power for all circuitry

2728-421: The need for static linking from an application to the libraries it used. The resulting smaller binaries used less of the hardware RAM to run, and used less disk space to install. Besides improving performance, it was a boon to developers: executable binaries could be in the tens of kilobytes instead of a megabyte for an executable statically linked to the C library . AIX v3 also scrapped the microkernel of AIX v2,

2790-451: The peak. There were development machines, simulator machines, and build machines, etc. Developers' desktops were multi-window terminals (versions of the Blit developed by Bell Labs ) until the mid 1990s, when Sun workstations were deployed. Developers continued to login into the servers for their work, using X11 on their workstations as a multi-window environment. Source code management

2852-402: The receive fiber and send them to the appropriate destination SM on the send fiber. The Very Compact Digital Exchange (VCDX) was developed with the 5ESS-2000, and marketed to mostly non-Bell telephone companies as an inexpensive, effective way to offer ISDN and other digital services in an analog switching center . This avoided the capital expense of retrofitting the entire analog switch into

2914-503: The same peripheral units that are part of a full 5ESS switch. An RSM has a limited distance and can serve parts of a larger metro area or rural offices. An ORM or wired ORM can be anywhere technically, and preferred over the RSM once the ORM became available. Both the RSM and ORM is often used as a Class-5 wire center for small to medium towns hosted from a 5ESS located in a larger city. The Wired ORM

2976-498: The same program, though smitty invokes the text-based version, while smit will invoke an X Window System based interface if possible; however, if smit determines that X Window System capabilities are not present, it will present the text-based version instead of failing. Determination of X Window System capabilities is typically performed by checking for the existence of the DISPLAY variable. Object Data Manager ( ODM )

3038-585: The standard OS for the Apple Network Server line by Apple Computer . In the late 1990s, under Project Monterey , IBM and the Santa Cruz Operation attempted to integrate AIX and UnixWare into a multiplatform Unix for Intel IA-64 architecture. The project was discontinued in 2002 after limited commercial success. In 2003, the SCO Group filed a lawsuit against IBM, alleging misappropriation of UNIX System V source code in AIX. The case

3100-421: The system was introduced with Motorola 68000 series processors. The name of the cabinet that houses this equipment was changed at the same time from Interface Module to Switching Module. Peripheral units are on shelves in the SM. In most exchanges the majority are Line Units (LU) and Digital Line Trunk Units (DLTU). Each SM has Local Digital Service Units (LDSU) to provide various services to lines and trunks in

3162-498: Was IBM's fourth attempt to offer Unix-like functionality for their mainframe line, specifically the System/370 (the prior versions were a TSS/370 -based Unix system developed jointly with AT&T c.1980, a VM/370 -based system named VM/IX developed jointly with Interactive Systems Corporation c.1984, and a VM/370 -based version of TSS/370 named IX/370 which was upgraded to be compatible with UNIX System V ). AIX/370

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3224-469: Was also used as a large private branch exchange (PBX). Small communities of less than 400 lines or so were also provided with SLC-96 units or Anymedia units. The standalone VCDX has a single Switching Module, and no Communications Module. Its Sun Microsystems SPARC workstation runs the UNIX -based Solaris (operating system) that executes a 3B20/21D processor MERT OS emulation system, acting as

3286-472: Was based on SCCS and utilized "#feature" lines to separate source code between releases, between features specific to US or Intl, and the like. Customisation around the vi and Emacs text editors allowed developers to work with the appropriate view of a file, hiding the parts that were not applicable to their current project. The change request system used the SCCS MR to create named change sets, tied into

3348-547: Was developed by Locus Computing Corporation under contract to IBM. AIX PS/2, first released in October 1988, ran on IBM PS/2 personal computers with Intel 386 and compatible processors. The product was announced in September 1988 with a baseline tag price of $ 595, although some utilities, such as UUCP , were included in a separate Extension package priced at $ 250. nroff and troff for AIX were also sold separately in

3410-575: Was developed for the IBM RT PC workstation by IBM in conjunction with Interactive Systems Corporation , who had previously ported UNIX System III to the IBM PC for IBM as PC/IX . According to its developers, the AIX source (for this initial version) consisted of one million lines of code. Installation media consisted of eight 1.2M floppy disks . The RT was based on the IBM ROMP microprocessor ,

3472-540: Was not a General Availability product. It was replaced in 1985 by IBM IX/370, a fully supported product based on AT&T's Unix/360 6th Edition, later updated to Unix System V. In 1986, IBM introduced AIX Version 1 for the IBM RT PC workstation. It was based on UNIX System V Releases 1 and 2, incorporating source code from 4.2 and 4.3 BSD UNIX. AIX Version 2 followed in 1987 for the RT PC. In 1990, AIX Version 3

3534-631: Was produced in 2003. The 5ESS came to market as the Western Electric No. 5 ESS. It commenced service in Seneca, Illinois on March 25, 1982, and was destined to replace the Number One Electronic Switching System (1ESS and 1AESS) and other electromechanical systems in the 1980s and 1990s. The 5ESS was also used as a Class-4 telephone switch or as a hybrid Class 4/Class 5 switch in markets too small for

3596-515: Was released for the POWER -based RS/6000 platform. It became the primary operating system for the RS/6000 series, which was later renamed IBM eServer pSeries , IBM System p , and finally IBM Power Systems . AIX Version 4, introduced in 1994, added symmetric multiprocessing and evolved through the 1990s, culminating with AIX 4.3.3 in 1999. A modified version of Version 4.1 was also used as

3658-524: Was released in 1990 with functional equivalence to System V Release 2 and 4.3BSD as well as IBM enhancements. With the introduction of the ESA/390 architecture, AIX/370 was replaced by AIX/ESA in 1991, which was based on OSF/1 , and also ran on the System/390 platform. This development effort was made partly to allow IBM to compete with Amdahl UTS . Unlike AIX/370, AIX/ESA ran both natively as

3720-536: Was resolved in 2010 when a jury ruled that Novell owned the rights to Unix, not SCO. AIX 6 was announced in May 2007 and became generally available on November 9, 2007. Key features included role-based access control , workload partitions , and Live Partition Mobility . AIX 7.1 was released in September 2010 with enhancements such as Cluster Aware AIX and support for large-scale memory and real-time application requirements. The original AIX (sometimes called AIX/RT )

3782-509: Was sold separately for another $ 250. IBM also offered a $ 150 AIX PS/2 DOS Server Program, which provided file server and print server services for client computers running PC DOS 3.3. The last version of PS/2 AIX is 1.3. It was released in 1992 and announced to add support for non-IBM (non-microchannel) computers as well. Support for PS/2 AIX ended in March 1995. In 1988, IBM announced AIX/370 , also developed by Locus Computing. AIX/370

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3844-405: Was usually served by RSM's, a 5ESS "Remote SM", ORM's or Wired ORM's. The RSM is controlled by T1 lines connected to a DLTU unit. The first 2 T1's are the control of the RSM and are necessary for any Recent Changes to take place. RSM's can have up to 10 T1's. There can be multiple RSM's in an office. An ORM can be fed via direct fiber or via coax thus called Wired ORM's. An RSM or ORM can have many of

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