How to use an AE Title?

["C.DEIGNAN" <[e-mail]>]

Hi all,

I know this seems silly, but this is a serious question :

	How are you supposed to use an AE Title, really?

I have to explain the context a bit. We have this really great OSI
stack (I'm not kidding), and we are continually trying to make it
as easy to use as possible (plug-and-play, quick-config, robust,
stable, administratable, etc.). I think that we are heading towards
a situation where our stack will be no more that 20% more difficult
to use than TCP/IP.

One of the approaches that we are taking to improve usability is to
have a harmonized configuration procedures that can share information
between several applications (currently FTAM, VT, MMS, TP, CMIP agent,
but not X400). This harmonized configuration service is called "CIS"
(Configuration Information Services). CIS can (or will be able to) use
X.500 as a "back-end". I already sent a mail to this group about this
approach about a year ago (Subjet: Yet Another Interface).

So the person who is developing the CIS-X.500 interface has asked the
$100 question - what is the user supposed to type?

Here is a quick example of what we do currently: Using a process called
VTtelnet to connect to a host called 'toto', the user types

	VTtelnet tel_toto

    This symbolic name gives us the called PSAP, and we use the 'uname'
    to get the calling PSAP. (The same sort of thing occurs for VTrsh,
    FTAM send and receive, etc..)


With X.500 as a backend, the calling and called PSAPs will be stored in
objects somewhere in the distributed database, and will be referenced by a
Distinguished Name (DN). The DN of the object will correspond to the AP Title
(form 1) the application. (Does this mean that it is impossible to establish
an association with a application that uses an AP Title in OID form, or is
there some sort of conversion possible?)

What should the user type?

	VTtelnet /C=fr/O=client/OU=client site/APP=VTtelnet/CN=toto/      ?

The above example seems highly un-ergonomic, and it still doesn't give us
the calling PSAP. Is there a better way? Any suggestions are welcome,
but we have to (try to) stay 100% "open". We want to be able to adapt
to the schema required by the client, etc..

Should we associate a "nickname" for frequently-used DNs? Or is there
some sort of naming rules that can simplify things?

I'm sorry to throw this question into this group, but its (vaguely)
related to X.500, and the people on this group seem to have very
high-quality knowledge this area.


Any suggestions, comments, remarks, etc.. are welcome. Sorry for the
long mail, and thank you for anything you can add.

Ciaran



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Ciaran Deignan                                    Tel: (France) (1) 30 90 69 56
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