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Understanding HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS  



The HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS product is the OpenVMS implementation of the industry-standard TCP/IP suite of communications protocols as specified in Request for Comments (RFCs) used by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

With TCP/IP, heterogeneous networks can interconnect, making it possible for users to connect to remote hosts in many ways:

Internetworking with TCP/IP hides the hardware details of each individual network and allows computers to communicate independently of their physical network connections. TCP/IP provides both a standard transport mechanism and full-duplex, reliable, stream communication services for software applications.

HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS software provides interoperability and resource sharing between OpenVMS systems, UNIX systems, and other systems that support the TCP/IP protocol suite and Sun Microsystems' Network File System (NFS). TCP/IP systems and other internet hosts share data and resources by using standard TCP/IP protocols over a number of network hardware configurations: Ethernet, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), Token Ring, and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM).

Each end system connected to a TCP/IP network is called a host. Each host has a unique name and address. The local host is the system you are using, and the remote host is the system with which you are communicating. Hosts are connected by lines that carry information between the hosts. The line is the physical path over which data can pass from one host to another. (Examples of lines are telephone lines, fiber-optic cables, and satellites.)

A TCP/IP network is called a packet-switching network. Information is transmitted in small packets of data rather than as a continuous stream from host to host. For example, a file to be transmitted from one host to another is divided into many small packets that are sent across the network one at a time. Each packet contains information about the address of the destination host. At the destination, the packets are reassembled.

The process of directing a data message from a source host to a destination host is called routing. For hosts not directly connected to each other, data can be forwarded from the source to the destination through intervening hosts.

Support for OpenVMS Cluster Systems  

HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS supports OpenVMS Cluster systems and the use of cluster aliases. The network sees the cluster as one system with one name, called the internet alias. A remote host can use the cluster alias to address the cluster as one host or use the host name of a cluster member to address a cluster member individually.

TCP/IP Services Management Tools and Utilities  

HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS provides a comprehensive, easy-to-use network management tool that includes over 100 OpenVMS DCL-style commands. These commands allow you to locally configure, monitor, and tune TCP/IP Services components by issuing management commands at the TCPIP> prompt.

You can also use UNIX management commands to manage some components.

For detailed information about managing TCP/IP Services on your system, refer to the HP TCP/IP Services for OpenVMS Management guide.


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