A development environment for generating System for Universal Network Connecting

Abstract

This paper describes a development environment for generating System for Universal Network Connecting (SUNC). The development environment enables easy generation of program support and configuration/reconfiguration of SUNC. SUNC is based on a PC or RISC platform with network and communication adapters. It is used for interconnecting from two to eight computer networks or computer systems with heterogeneous communication protocols or architectures. Its configuration is determined by the type of networks to be connected. It can simultaneously provide one or more of the following functions: a network bridge, a router and/or a gateway (for example bridge between two networks, router to another and gateway to a computer system or public network). At the same time, SUNC can monitor and control the network, that is it has the possibilities of a Network Management Center (NMC), with options for data security such as encryption (DES, RSA cryptographic systems). Important features of SUNC are its simple installation, reconfiguration, its universality, portability, modularity, flexibility and acceptable price. New network protocols, architectures, physical links, network and communications adapters can easily be added to the system since they are described as objects. Thus, any number of new objects can be added if their descriptions are made according to the development environment rules. In that way, the development environment can be used to generate a family of SUNCs with different program supports, depending on the application requests. This environment simplifies creation of devices used for connecting heterogeneous computer networks.