Re: Call for participation -- Is OSI really useful?
"Stover, Robert" <BOB@p01.uci.com> Fri, 03 June 1994 18:01 UTC
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From: "Stover, Robert" <BOB@p01.uci.com>
To: John Day <Day@bbn.com>, laurae <laurae@laurae.ar.telenex.com>
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Subject: Re: Call for participation -- Is OSI really useful?
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 1994 11:24:00 -0700
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I think I have been "over quoted" a bit so maybe I should inject a few thoughts ( I never use the term backplane architecture in reference to OSI. Where did that come from?). I certainly agree with John that many of the early contributors in the development of OSI had a good vision of where open network architectures were going, even a few who worked for large corporations. Some major vendors had internal architecture work that paralleled OSI and influenced its development. At the same time all of the major vendors had their own private communications / network architectures with large installed bases. Some large vendors saw OSI as common structure that could be used to interface their private networks to other networks, thereby protecting their currently installed equipment and in the longer term providing a potential migration path to a native OSI capability. It was in this environment of needing to interconnect these dissimilar systems that the work on OSI was started. It would be incorrect to suggest that the ability to provide a basis for gateway capabilities was the only initial objective for OSI. There were many objectives for OSI as well as many interests involved. As in any large project, this sometimes led to additional complexity and not every decision perfectly satisfying everyone. One of the objectives for the OSI architecture was the ability to accommodate changing technology. It is natural to have some change of emphasis over the years to reflect the immense changes that have occurred in our industry, both in terms of the make up of the equipment vendors and in terms of the available technologies. The interesting thing is that what precipitated this discussion was the call for an OIW BOFmeeting to work on accommodating precisely these requirements. I don+t think anyone has lost track of the objectives. Possibly, the language in the announcement could have been better stated. The current direction in much of the OSI work (in which many of commentors are intimately involved) is toward providing more flexibility and efficiency, such as this meeting on Upper Layer Efficiency. By providing more capability to select only the required functionality, OSI has the potential of being applicable to an expanded area of usage, i.e., providing efficient systems to support time critical applications in one case and yet still providing the full functionality when needed for complex applications. A number of groups are considering ways to make the standards process more effective, e.g., faster, including wider participation, etc. Any practical suggestions toward that end would be appreciated. However, I would hope that the philosophical discussions would not detract from the primary reason for the meeting, Upper Layer efficiency. Best Regards, Bob Stover
- Call for participation -- Is OSI really useful? laurae
- Call for participation -- Is OSI really useful? laurae
- Re: Call for participation -- Is OSI really usefu… John Day
- Re: Call for participation -- Is OSI really usefu… Simon E Spero
- Re[2]: Call for participation -- Is OSI really us… D_P_Sanford
- Re: Call for participation -- Is OSI really usefu… Peter Williams,Sterling Software
- Re: Call for participation -- Is OSI really usefu… John Day
- Re: Call for participation -- Is OSI really usefu… Stover, Robert