CURRENT_MEETING_REPORT_



Reported by Daisy Shen/IBM

NetData Minutes

This is the third meeting of the Working Group Chaired by Daisy Shen.
The meeting Agenda is shown below:


   o Reviewed the charter.
   o Reviewed the the draft.
   o Discussed the draft and problems that are related to the subject.
   o Reported the status of the first implementation.
   o Looked for the second implementation.
   o Discussed the effort of other vendors and OSF related to the
     subject.
   o Future Work.


Reviewed the Charter

Most the attendees were new to the Working Group; therefore, we reviewed
the Charter and agreed that we met the Charter and the milestones on the
schedule December 1991.  Although the group was small, a lot of valuable
discussions were held.

Reviewed the Draft

The original draft was separated in two documents.  One is the protocol
itself, and the other is implementation information.  We reviewed both
documents.  The most terrible mistake was a typo of ASN. Members
suggested that the draft should define the requirements more clearly
rather than explain one of the alternatives.  Once the requirements are
defined, it is up to the implementer which alternative to choose to
implement Network Database System.  It is a very valuable suggestion.
The draft will be revised according to the suggestion.

Discussed the draft and problems that are related to the subject

We discussed some problems and resolutions during last meeting at
Atlanta.  We continued to discuss more issues, and resolved the
following issues:


  1. Multiple threads between clients and a server

       o Unit of Work

  2. Multiple servers on a host

       o Program number and Port number

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  3. Data Buffers

       o Database <--> DB Utility <--> Server <--> Client

  4. Data conversion

       o Character strings with ASN.1 and BER(Basic Encoding Rules)

  5. Security

       o Security is required, but the protocol should not be limited to
         Kerberos only.  Kerberos is suggested, but not required.  The
         implementer can choose a means that suits their own system.


Reported the status of the first implementation

A version of Sun Microsystems <--> IBM VM is implemented.  It follows
the draft except for data conversion.  It does not use ASN.1 but a
somewhat similar method to manage data conversion.

Looked for the second implementation

We are looking for volunteers to do the second implementation.  There is
a good possibility.

Discussed the effort of other vendors related to the subject

We would like to know more about the work that the SQL access group has
done, but we could not.

Future Work


   o Update the protocol draft and provide a clear requirements.
   o Discuss Error Recovery.
   o Compare the performance of data conversion between the first
     implementation and using ASN.1.
   o Give a presentation on ASN.1.
   o Give a presentation on ISO standard.
   o Run a demo.
   o Contact the Operational Statistics Working Group.
   o Find volunteers to do the second version of the implementation.


Attendees

L. Dain Gary             ldg@cert.sei.cmu.edu
William Jackson          jackson@manta.nosc.mil
Dale Johnson             dsj@merit.edu
Bill Melohn              melohn@auspex.com
Mark Needleman           mhn@stubbs.ucop.edu
Robert Purvy             bpurvy@us.oracle.com
Harvey Shapiro           shapiro@wnyose.nctsw.navy.mil

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Daisy Shen               daisy@watson.ibm.com



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