ULANA: new name in networking; government's LAN blueprint is based on commercially available products - Unified Local Area Network Architecture

Software Magazine, Oct, 1988 by Jerry Cashin

ULANA: NEW NAME IN NETWORKING

Unified Local Area Network Architecture (Ulana) has the potential to do for local area networks (LANs) what the space program did for the miniaturization of electronics. Ulana has the potential to evolve into the full flower of Open System Interconnection (OSI) functionality sought by many end users.

One reason for Ulana's influence is its sheer size. Fully implemented, it would be installed in over 100 sites throughout the world. That would represent well over $100 million in software life-cycle costs.

Ulana also features more interfaces to more diverse components than any other LAN acquisition. In terms of its end-user profile, it truly offers open architecture.

Stan Ames, a department head and a leader in the evolution of Ulana requirements at the Mitre Corporation, Bedford, Mass., says, "Ulana offers the reality originally promised by office automation in the applications that will be implemented. We followed the standards where practical."

Ames believes that "Ulana emphatically influenced the commercial marketplace. It demonstrated that mainstream products could be built and that there would be a receiptive audience for the many components detailed in the Ulana specification. It also meant that networks based on an evolving standards base were viable for the future."

A system concept developed by the Air Force, Ulana represents one important segment of a seven-part building-block approach to computer and communication services for application development. The other segments offer Air Force and other government end users three characteristics considered essential in a contemporary processing environment: dedicated workstations, shared database capability and transparent communications. The latter attribute is still in a state of transition.

The seven platforms for current and future applications development include:

* Ulana;

* At-compatible dedicated workstations;

* Unix-based multiuser departmental systems;

* Posix standards for Unix interfacing;

* Defense Data Network (DDN) for supporting multivendor equipment. DDN is a direct descendant of Arpanet, developed in 1969, and among the first working heterogenous multivendor networks.

* TCP/IP interoperability protocol standardization; and

* Gosip, which describes the use of ISO networks throughout the federal government.

This approach will provide all of the previously mentioned building blocks, along with programming languages and application tools, to guide all large organizations into the next decade.

Ulana, therefore, is not a development solely peculiar to the Air Force. It has broad applicability wherever there are or will be LANs. The Ulana II follow-on specification today illustrates the foward-thinking nature of the specification.

Its precepts should be analyzed by all LAN practitioners because it intends to follow all the standards in a full seven layer stack (see Figure 1).

Many of those standards are now of the non-OSI de facto variety in view of current incompleteness within the OSI environment. Yet there is a proposal to migrate and adopt de jure standards as promulgated by ISO, CCITT, Ansi, IEEE and related bodies.

Despite the present use of TCP/IP-type protocols, the Department of Defense is committed to the OSI suite of multivendor protocols. This is clearly shown in the Gosip specification, which focuses on wide-area network service, plus the follow-on Ulana II protocol (see Figure 2).

According to Tom Powis, Ulana leader and chief of information standards at Hanscom Air Force Base, Bedford, Mass., "The Air Force is bending over backward to remain in the commercial mainstream. We do not want to be proprietary. We are determined to stay in the commercial world. All system components fall within product lines that can be acquired in the conventional marketplace."

The casual observer might look at the Ulana I protocols and ask: Are these OSI-type products?

The answer would be "mostly no." Except for the IEEE 802.3 (and the 802.2 Logical Link Control offering), the remaining software products fall into the Arpanet de facto category.

AIR FORCE: REFLECTING, ANTICIPATING

By planning for a Ulana I, to reflect contemporary standards use, and a Ulana II, to anticipate universally accepted open systems, the Air Force has achieved the best of both worlds. Its operational capability is up-to-date and has a mainstream standardization.

This approach also enhances migration by allowing both protocol families to persist into the future. Only gateways or other network transformation tools need to ensure continuing interoperability within their own environments and between each other.

It must be noted that Ulana II is not funded by Air Force budget planners. This is the typical method for military finances. Unless some draconian cuts are made to Pentagon budgets, Ulana II, or its technological equivalent, should begin in the early 1990s. Again, it will depend more on political developments than on technical expertise.

OSI has its own propagation cycle, quite apart from anything occuring in the worlds of Ulana I or II. For one, the various elements of the protocol suite are still under development.