The IMS Software Integration Platform
J. W. Given, W. K. Fox, Jing Wang, Thomas C. Bache · 1993
The Software Integration Platform (SIP) supports automated and interactive distributed processing for the Intelligent Monitoring System (IMS). The SIP addresses the practical problem of integrating existing software and data archives into a processing system distributed on a network of UNIX workstations. It consists of software components that are widely applicable to other scientific data-processing operations. The SIP is divided into two subsystems. The Data Management System (DMS) manages shared data stored in archives distributed over a wide-area network. The Distributed Applications Control System (DACS) handles inter-process communication (IPC) and process control for user applications distributed over a local-area network. The data archives managed by the DMS consists of commercial relational database management systems (RDBMS) supplemented by UNIX file systems. User applications access data stored in the archives through the Data Management System Interface (DMSI). The DMSI allows global access to data independent of a specific physical archive. Because IMS requires the capabilities provided by commercial RDBMS products, the DMSI includes extensive support for these products. The CommAgent provides message routing and queueing.