RARE Call for Tender for MS-Windows X.500 DUA using LDAP

[" (Tim Dixon)" <[e-mail]>]

RARE solicits tenders for the provision of a Directory User Agent
employing the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP/RFC1487) for
the MS-Windows operating system. Please direct all enquiries to the
RARE Secretariat ([e-mail], mail address below).

Analysis of products available for personal/desktop computer systems has
indicated that no LDAP solution is available for the MS-Windows
platform. RARE has therefore decided to encourage the provision of such
a solution by offering to assist with the development costs. A full
specification of the requirements is attached to this solicitation.
Basic requirements, however, can be summarised as follows:

        o       Support for MS-Windows 3.0 and higher and
                a commonly-available lower-layers protocol
                stack, preferably the WinSocket library.

        o       A "user-friendly point-and-click" interface
                conformant to the "look and feel" of MS-windows,
                customisable for different language environments
 
        o       The ability at least to search and browsethe directory
                and display entries. The ability to update and create 
                new entries is to be preferred, but not essential.

        o       Customisable schemas including basic provision
                of at least the "PilotPerson" Object Class 
                defined in RFC1274. Within the schema, it
                should be possible to customise the default 
                DUA display to show only a chosen subset of 
                objects and/or attributes.

        o       Available funding is limited, therefore 
                a successful proposal is likely to be based
                on porting an existing DUA or on an offer
                for collaborative funding

        o       The application should be freely distributable
                to the academic and research community represented
                by RARE for non-commercial use.

Tenders should sent to the RARE Secretariat at the address below by 17th
September 1993. Further information can be obtained from the same
address. In addition to the information requested in the Requirements
section of this call for tender, tenders should include:

        o       The cost to RARE of the development work

        o       The estimated start and end dates of the 
                development phase of the project
        o       The length of time for which support will
                be provided following the development phase,
                and the extent of that support
        o       The name of an administrative contact for
                contract negotiation
        o       The name of a technical contact
        o       Telephone numbers, addresses and e-mail
                addresses of the named contacts

Where the proposals are based on modifications to existing products,
tenderers are encouraged to offer access to demonstration versions of
the existing products so that there features may be compared.

Specification
=============

Hardware, Operating System and Communications Software
------------------------------------------------------

The DUA application should be supplied in binary form for execution
under MS-Windows 3.0 + MS-DOS v5.0 or appropriate later releases of this
software. The software should support a TCP/IP communication stack
commonly available within the European academic community, preferably
the WinSocket library. Tenders should indicate specific hardware and
software requirements.

Proposals should not rely on the availability of colour displays, but
may require the provision of at least VGA-resolution monitors.

Human Interface
---------------

The application should provide an intuitive human interface which
provides access to the major functions using the WIMP paradigm in a
fashion compatible with the "look and feel" of other Windows
applications.

The application should be delivered with textual information provided in
the English language, but should be developed in such a way that
translation to other language environments is straightforward.

Protocol Elements
-----------------

The DUA should implement the protocol specified in RFC1487, although
BIND requests may be restricted to "simple" authentication. Encoding
rules for attribute values are as defined in RFC1488.

Functionality
-------------

The DUA is required to provide at least search, browse and display
operations (i.e. it should be possible to look for an entry without
knowing the exact RDN or position within the DIT and to display its
contents in a meaningful way). It should be possible to navigate the
directory structure without the need to enter either attribute names or
values, although the entry of attribute values may be used to direct
attention to a chosen part of the tree. The sorting scheme which
determines the order in which entries are returned for selection should
be customisable by the user (i.e. the attributes used to determine the
order should be selectable). It should be possible by means of
configuration (possibly by a system manager) to restrict the default DUA
display to a subset of object classes, or attribute types meaningful in
a particular application.

The DUA may additionally provide for the updating of existing directory
entries and for the creation of new entries. This provision will be
balanced against the proposal cost: tenderers who wish to offer this
functionality may benefit from quoting separate prices for the basic
(search/display) and extended implementations.

DSA Interworking
----------------

It should be possible to demonstrate interworking with at least two
different DSA implementations. Dependency on a particular DSA will
not be acceptable.

Schema 
------

The basic reference for the schema to be supported is RFC1274 (The
COSINE and Internet X.500 Schema). The DUA must be pre-configured to be
able to recognise the PilotPerson Object Class defined in this document.
However, the DUA must also be configurable to support a variety of
different classes of data object for all supported operations. Tenders
should specify any restrictions on the data types or combinations of
data types that may be used in configuring new classes of object. 

Intellectual Property, Support and Maintenance
==============================================

Licensing
---------

The application should be distributable freely or at nominal cost to the
international academic and research community for non-commercial use.
The supplier may make additional charges for the provision of support
and/or documentation beyond that described below. It is not a
requirement that the source code of the application be made freely
available. Furthermore, the supplier shall not be inhibited from
commercial exploitation of the product outside of this community.

Installation, Support & Documentation
-------------------------------------

Sufficient documentation should be provided (preferably in
electronic form) to permit the installation of the application
by an averagely-experienced network manager. The installation
should contain a test procedure to enable its success to
be determined.

Following completion of the development phase of the project,
the tenderer will be expected to fix significant defects
in the application which are reported during the initial
period of its use.

Monitoring and Acceptance
=========================

Intermim versions of the application should be made available for
evaluation by a review group nominated by RARE. Payments will
normally be staged, payment being dependent on the acceptance
of each phase of the development by the nominated group.

Addresses
=========

Tenders to be sent to:

        RARE Secretariat
        Singel 466-468
        NL - 1017 AW Amsterdam.

Phone:  [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]