The Computer Systems Laboratory and the Laboratory Systems Unit of the Computer Center Branch are working jointly on a project to provide researchers with 32-bit, UNIX-based, high-performance workstations manufactured by a variety of vendors. The workstations will be interconnected by the NIH campus-wide LAN, by which they will share resources and access services such as file backup, software maintenance, online documentation, nation-wide electronic mail and news, computation and database servers, and laser printers. Potential applications for Advanced Laboratory Workstations (ALWS) include interactive graphics, laboratory data acquisition and analysis, modeling, image processing, and desktop publishing. We are adapting software from projects with similar goals which have been underway for several years at Carnegie-Mellon University (Project Andrew) and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Project Athena). This year we succeeded in building a working prototype system consisting of over 20 Sun-3 and IBM RT client workstations running the Andrew File System (AFS), the X Window System, and several major applications. The AFS file server backup software, which we developed last year using the C++ programming language and the NIH Class Library, handles centralized backup of the AFS servers over the DCRT Ethernet. We issued an RFP for the procurement of up to 15 AFS servers to be purchased over the next three years. Next fiscal year we plan to begin deployment of these servers and of Advanced Laboratory Workstations at NIH. To support this, we've begun development of a database system to track user and workstation account information. We also plan to begin integration of the Convex C220 that is replacing the DECsystem-10 with the ALW system, and to investigate ALW support for IBM AIX-based systems.
