NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #20/NN_1992_20.iso/spool/comp/protocol/iso/1118

Internet Message Format | 1992-09-10 | 1.8 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!ogicse!das-news.harvard.edu!spdcc!Cthulhu!ralph
From: [e-mail] (Ralph Mackiewicz)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso
Subject: OSI Failure? (MMS and TCP/IP)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 10 Sep 92 12:20:06 GMT
Sender: [e-mail]
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Organization: Industrial Computing Society
Lines: 26

Reply to Don Provan regarding installed base of OSI:

You obviously missed the point.  I am not arguing in favor of OSI verus
other transport and network protocols on the basis of technical merit
nor am I claiming that OSI transport and network should be used because
of the installed base.  I merely stated a fact that most MMS implementation
s to date have used OSI transport and network.  If you are going to build
an MMS product that you intend to use to communicate with other implementat
ions it would be even more hilarious to implement it with TCP/IP since no
one else has.  Frankly, your response is why I spend time writing these
messages.  You obviously don't care about the reality that if you are goint
to build an interoperable MMS product you better use OSI.  Who cares that
there will be no one to talk to.  Instead, perhaps you would use TCP/IP.
You would have a better technical solution....its just too bad that you
wouldn't be able to communicate with anyone else's MMS.  Now who's being
silly?

The point I keep trying to make, without much success, is that OSI is not
useless just because TCP/IP is better at some things.  There is some value
in OSI.  I have many customers using the technology (not vendors) who spend
money on OSI (or more precisely MMS) because it saves them money in
integrating their plant floor devices and provides them a solution to
their needs that no other networking technology can provide.

Ralph Mackiewicz
[e-mail] or [e-mail]