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Inferno was designed from the outset with distributed, cross-platform systems in mind. With its advanced and yet simple networking capabilities, transparent resource access and applications which are portable across several platforms, Inferno offers an unrivalled set of tools for developing and building distributed systems.

Cross Platform Integration
Each Inferno system presents the same environment to the applications, irrespective of the underlying architecture or operating system, of which the following are supported:

    Host Operating Systems
  • Windows NT/2000/XP
  • Irix
  • Linux
  • MacOS X
  • FreeBSD
  • Solaris
  • Plan 9
  •      Supported Architectures
  • Intel x86 (386 & higher)
  • Intel XScale
  • IBM PowerPC
  • ARM StrongARM (ARM & Thumb)
  • Sun SPARC
This means that not only can all Inferno platforms communicate easily using the same, secure protocol, all Inferno applications are also completely portable between platforms: Inferno applications are written in Limbo, an advanced, safe, concurrent language with C like syntax. Limbo code is compiled into architecture independant byte code which is then interpreted (or compiled on the fly). The end result for the user is a seamlessly integrated environment for sharing resources and running applications across multiple platforms.

Transparent Resource Access
With Inferno, resources can be imported and exported over a network. These resources may then be used without the user knowing, or needing to know, if the resource is local or remote. Inferno's file based communication protocol enables all resources to be accessed using the same mechanism which also means that security can be focussed on just one point.

Secure Communication
Inferno provides mechanisms for strong peer-to-peer public key encryption and authentication. The use of a single communication protocol means that security can be focused on just one point and does not need to be re-implemented by each application. Network connections may be authenticated using certificates to ensure access is only granted to authorised users. Connections may also be encrypted using a variety of secure algorithms to ensure that data is kept private where necessary.

Your Requirements
Vita Nuova can help you with all aspects of your distributed application development including: training, design and implementation. Contact us to discuss your requirements.

Development Tools
Acme
A powerful integrated development environment, includes editor, shell, advanced pattern matching tools & more

Fast Limbo Compiler
With full debugging output

Graphical Debugger
Step into executing code and browse variable states

Comprehensive Shell
With powerful scripting capabilities

UNIX-like Commands
Such as bind, grep, mount and yacc

Limbo
Easy to Learn
Limbo syntax is similar to C and is designed to be easy to read and understand

Absolutely Portable
Source code is compiled into architecture independent byte code which will run identically on all Inferno platforms

Advanced Concurrency
Cheap processes, powerful interprocess communication and synchronisation

Dynamic Modules
Loaded at runtime as and when required, loaded modules are never duplicated in memory

Safe
Compile and runtime type checking and runtime array bounds checking

Automatic Garbage Collection
No need to remember to free up memory when no longer in use