PrismTech Announces Next Generation OpenSplice(TM) Data Distribution Service (DDS) Middleware and Productivity Tools for Real-time Mission-Critical Systems.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- OpenSplice v2.0 Delivers Much More Than Traditional Publish-Subscribe Messaging Middleware by Providing a True Real-Time Information Backbone Ensuring the Right Information is Available in the Right Place at the Right Time

PrismTech(TM), a leading provider of productivity tools and middleware, today announced its next generation Data Distribution Service (DDS) software, OpenSplice(TM) v2.0. Offering much more than traditional publish-subscribe messaging middleware, OpenSplice v2.0 provides a true real-time 'information backbone' - ensuring the right information is available in the right place at the right time.

To ensure operational advantage, mission-critical systems increasingly require distributed, real-time information availability for applications ranging from small-scale embedded control systems to large-scale 'enterprise' information management systems. Information stemming from multiple sensors in these systems must be distributed in a reliable and timely manner to multiple software components, that will combine, fuse and process this information in order to either present it to human operators or use it to control multiple distributed actuators 'on time' and in a safe manner.

Furthermore, demanding fault-tolerance and other Quality of Service (QoS) requirements are also pushing developers to look beyond traditional middleware technologies (e.g. non real-time publish-subscribe or service-oriented client-server) for acceptable solutions. These requirements are increasingly seen in application domains such as combat management and surveillance systems for military services, air traffic control systems in civil aviation and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system in industrial control.

OpenSplice v2.0 is now able to provide a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solution for these demanding real-time net-centric systems meaning that systems providers no longer have to design, build and support in-house proprietary middleware.

Fully supporting the Object Management Group(TM)'s (OMG(TM)'s) Data Distribution Service (DDS) specification, benefiting from 30+ man years of mission-critical systems development experience, and based on proven software deployed in over 15 armed services worldwide, OpenSplice v2.0 delivers a standards-based fault-tolerant, real-time information backbone clearly differentiated from other DDS implementations.

For superior performance and scalability, OpenSplice utilizes a shared-memory architecture. Data is physically present only once on any machine, but smart administration still provides any subscriber with 'his' own private view of this data. This allows a subscriber's data cache to be perceived as an individual 'database' that can be content-filtered, queried etc. (using DDS's content-subscription profile as supported by OpenSplice). This shared-memory architecture results in an extremely low footprint, excellent scalability and optimal performance. For example, compare implementations where each reader/writer is a 'communication-endpoint', each with its own storage (i.e. historical data both at reader and writer) and where data itself has to be moved, even within the same platform.

For superior fault-tolerance, OpenSplice provides fault-tolerant availability of transient information. This is a unique capability of OpenSplice, allowing 'late joining' applications (e.g. due to restart or reallocation) to retain a correct state through an advanced, yet proven, implementation of the DDS specification's 'transient' QoS policy.

For superior support of pre-existing application code, OpenSplice supports C, C++ and Java language bindings and can thus be integrated with minimum effort into existing, heterogeneous and hybrid systems.

For superior optimization, the OpenSplice run-time system offers a 'pluggable' service architecture. This means specialized versions of services can be 'plugged-in'; such as the networking-service (e.g. using custom transports) or the durability-service (e.g. using user-defined persistent storage: like a RDBMS instead of a 'flat' XML-file). This feature thus supports selective deployment to further reduce footprint, enhance performance or exploit specialized services.

Furthermore, OpenSplice does not impose a proprietary API. OpenSplice fully conforms to the OMG's DDS open standard which encapsulates broad industry input in defining a coherent set of 'profiles' that define QoS.

As well as providing total coverage of the DDS specification OpenSplice provides complete coverage of the system-design cycle:

--Development: information modeling, object-modeling and code generation.

--Deployment: configuration-support, application-integration support, monitoring and tuning.

The OpenSplice suite offers advanced features and unique development tools to provide unrivalled ease-of-use, productivity and code correctness (robustness and standards-compliance) for developers. From its advanced 'data local reconstruction layer' (DLRL) implementation (which provides an object-oriented view on a set of 'topics'), to its development lifecycle information and application modeling tools, to its run-time monitoring and management tools, OpenSplice provides the best DDS-compliant application development and deployment interface available.

--OpenSplice's information-modeling tools help to efficiently defined the information to be exchanged and the related QoS policies regarding delivery, urgency and durability.

--OpenSplice's application-modeling tools define and auto-generate the DDS-entity and application framework code. This greatly improves developer productivity as well as lowering defect-rates.

--OpenSplice's deployment modeling and run-time monitoring and maintenance tools provide total remote-control over the deployed DDS-system.

--OpenSplice tools support is provided for developers who are developing in a 'top-down' manner (starting from a UML model and using DLRL), as well as users who are developing 'bottom-up' with an existing Data-Centric Publish-Subscribe (DCPS) topic model.

--Finally, systems integration and evolution are supported by the run-time monitoring tools being fully integrated with the design-time modeling tools, thus supporting real 'round-trip' engineering capability.

With OpenSplice, PrismTech also offers compatibility with complementary technologies. PrismTech is able to deliver a single vendor 'one-stop-shop' for integrated and standards-based middleware solutions (DDS, CORBA, SDR) for mission-critical systems e.g. for the open architecture computing environment (OACE).

"OpenSplice v2.0 provides the real-time developer with a more productive, satisfying and cost-efficient development and deployment experience; while delivering mission-critical systems to market: faster at lower cost and with higher quality," said Hans van't Hag, OpenSplice Product Manager, PrismTech.

"With its superior performance, scalability; fault tolerance, legacy support and flexibility; standards-compliance; a mission systems heritage and proven robustness; and the global support and expertise of PrismTech's acknowledged domain experts, OpenSplice is clearly the superior DDS-compliant middleware," added Steve Jennis, SVP Corporate Development, PrismTech.

Further information about OpenSplice is available from PrismTech's website at http://www.prismtech.com/middleware.

Notes for Editors

About PrismTech

Founded in 1992, with offices in the USA and Europe, PrismTech is a privately held software products company. PrismTech serves international Fortune 500 customers in the telecommunications, data communications, defense and aerospace sectors. PrismTech is an acknowledged leader in software productivity tools and middleware, with solutions ranging from wide-scale integration to embedded real-time systems, supporting applications from operations support systems (OSS) through to software-defined radio (SDR). For additional information about PrismTech, visit the web site at http://www.prismtech.com.

OpenSplice is a trademark of PrismTech. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.