ISO Protocol Research Articles

Some issues on management of application connection establishment

There exist in computer networks communities of cooperating application entities among which a lot of connections are established and released in a random way. In such an environment a management function ordering the utilization of the connection resource is needed as well as proper mechanisms supporting the connection establishment procedures. The paper discusses some issues which should be considered when designing such an application. It is described using a file/mail transfer as an example. The common and extra solutions are presented and discussed, some requirements towards ISO protocols are formulated.

An OSI communication system for the public administration of the state Nordrhein-Westfalen

Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) is a federal state of the Federal Republic of Germany with about 17 million inhabitants and with important business, trade and industry. The offices of the state administration spread over the area of NRW today use several hundreds of dp-systems covering a wide range of size, supplied by 14 different vendors. The most frequently used communication applications are: file transfer, interactive data processing, information retrieval, office automation. For 8 years these numerous dp-systems work together in a multiple vendors OSI-like communication system, called DVS. A test, service and maintenance center as well as electronic mail and a dp-based information system provide the technical means for DVS-management, compatibility and sufficient user acceptance. New DVS-functions e.g. message handling are fully based on ISO standards and CCITT recommendations. However, it is not an easy task with technical and organizational concerns to replace former national or DVS-specific prestandards by ISO-protocols. In DVS this will be done by an overlay concept taking into account a 24 hrs/day service, cost, user acceptance and no break in further DVS-development. A survey will be given on the DVS state of the art, ISO protocol activities in DVS and further developments.

The migration of EARN to use ISO protocols

EARN is determined to migrate to use ISO protocols as soon as possible. It is vital that during this migration there is no significant loss of service to the users. Until recently there have not been the products available to start a migration. There are now a number of developments which suggest that the first stages of a migration could now be undertaken. The completion of the process will take several years. The EARN Board of Directors set up a working party to define the migration path which is just concluding its work. This paper is a summary of their report. The full report is now under discussion.

Testing to assure interworking of implementations of ISO/OSI protocols

At the Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology of the national Bureau of Standards, an architecture has been specified for testing protocols in layers four through seven of the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) Basic Reference Model for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI). This paper describes the application of that architecture to testing Class 4 Transport with thirteen vendors' implementations of the protocols prior to a demonstration of ISO protocols at the National Computer Conference in 1984. The test results are summarized and an evaluation of the architecture and individual tools is presented. The paper concludes with a summary of a more ambitious demonstration of networking using implementation of ISO protocols.

OSI transport services on top of the TCP

The ARPA Internet community has a well-developed, mature set of transport and internetwork protocols, which are quite successful in offering network and transport services to end-users. The protocols provide “open system interconnection” (OSI) for users, and a robust competitive market is supplied by a growing number of vendors. The CCITT and ISO have defined various network, transport, session, presentation, and application recommendations and standards which have been adopted by the international community and numerous vendors. To the largest extent possible, it is desirable to offer the higher level services (i.e., session and above) in networks based on the ARPA protocols, without disrupting existing facilities. It is also desirable to develop expertise with ISO and CCITT protocols while utilizing a robust set of transport services. Finally, given the probable, long-term dominance of the international standards, it is desirable to design a graceful transition strategy from network based on the ARPA protocols to OSI-based networks. In this paper, we suggest an exercise in interoperability which achieves all three of these goals. Our solution is practical in the sense that it: can be easily implemented in a cost-effective manner in the short-term; permits application-designers to work with an OSI applications-framework, while utilizing existing robust transport and network protocols; and, provides the basis for a far-reaching migration strategy to the OSI protocols.