Xref: utzoo comp.mail.misc:3419 sci.astro:7522 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!mcnc!uvaarpa!murdoch!fits!dwells From: dwells@fits.acc.Virginia.EDU (Don Wells) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,sci.astro Subject: Re: Will there be a Great Unified Net? Message-ID: <1990May27.035520.1919@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> Date: 27 May 90 03:55:20 GMT References: <1024@mpirbn.UUCP> <2112@dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov> <1990May22.203851.6074@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <1990May26.190406.7788@uu.psi.com> Sender: news@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Reply-To: dwells@fits.cx.nrao.edu (Don Wells) Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA Lines: 78 Marty, In article <1990May26.190406.7788@uu.psi.com> schoff@uu.psi.com (Martin Schoffstall) writes: >I need to argue with you on some fine points: As you will see below, I am in complete agreement with your fine points. >The International Standards Organization (ISO) clearly has a string >of failures in FTAM, VT, TP0, etc... However, there is an element of >the tcp/ip community that thinks that X.400 and X.500 are worthy >enough to exist as applications in the tcp/ip world. Count me as a part of that element. I loosely referred to "OSI/X.400/X.500" because the previous followup had argued for the X.400 address notation; my usage was misleading, because what I really meant was the effort to deliver an entire interoperable OSI protocol stack, which I agree has been a limited success at best. > Certain places (like Columbia University) use X.500 >as the basis for distributing their phonebook data on a timely basis >(weekly I believe), to faculty/student/staff who participate in the >Columbia wide network. I am aware of the NYSERnet/PSI pilot project, and am watching it closely. I am on the "QUIPU" mailing list [*], so you know I am seriously interested in X.500. I, wearing my hat as networking coordinator for NRAO, judge that your project is still somewhat a beta trial, and that NRAO's role is to be on the cutting edge of astronomy research, not to be on the cutting edge of CS research, and therefore I wait and watch. I am impressed by what I hear of your pilot, and my present guess is that I might recommend that we participate in a year or so. >It is possible that we will hide much of the ugliness of the X.400 >notation but use the protocol mechanisms to deliver multimedia mail, >again, layered on tcp/ip. Hear! Hear! I definitely want that elegant multimedia functionality as soon as I can get it for our Suns, Convexes, etc., at about the same price that I pay for the SMTP mailers and the DNS servers and resolvers that we now use (i.e., at no extra charge). Obviously X.400_over_TCP/IP and X.500_lookup will coexist with good old SMTP mail and the DNS for many years, so that we can have a graceful, relatively painless transition to the brave new world. I agree that the address notation currently proposed for X.400 mailers is really ugly compared to the DNS notation. IMO, finishing the worldwide Internet ASAP and then carefully transitioning it to the new application protocol suites, while maintaining interoperability, is now the only rational strategy open for worldwide networking. This is why I urged my fellow astronomers to connect to the Internet ASAP so that they can "have it all" right now: real interoperability plus the distributed DNS database plus a realistic migration strategy to the OSI application layer components. I judge from your remarks that you and I are in very nearly perfect agreement on all these issues. Best regards, Don Donald C. Wells, Associate Scientist | NSFnet: dwells@nrao.edu [192.33.115.2] National Radio Astronomy Observatory | SPAN: NRAO::DWELLS [6654::] Edgemont Road | BITnet: DWELLS@NRAO Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA | UUCP: ...!uunet!nrao.edu!dwells Lat: 38:02.2N Long: 78:31.1W | Tel:+1-804-296-0277 Fax:+1-804-296-0278 [*] Note to readers interested in the X.500 technology: quipu@cs.ucl.ac.uk is a worldwide exploder for discussions of issues surrounding another X.500 prototype effort called QUIPU. Send requests to quipu-request@cs.ucl.ac.uk if you want to listen. I recommend that only people *seriously* interested in details of X.500 technology listen to this list. If you want to participate in the NYSERnet/PSI pilot send a request for info to Marty (schoff@uu.psi.com). Again, only do this if you are ready to do a lot of work (anybody who has tried to construct and maintain an organization-wide phone directory can tell you it is a major project). You would also want to listen to several relevant newsgroups (e.g., comp.protocols.iso.x400 and comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains), and probably like me be baffled by much of the arcane semi-gibberish ISO/OSI notations.