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From: mhsc@oce.nl
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway
Subject: Re: IFIP Gateway Workshop Report
Message-ID: <8811161332.AA04235@oce-rd2.oce.nl>
Date: 16 Nov 88 15:32:49 GMT
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Hello Tim

I read your minutes of a IFIP meeting on MHS 84/88 interworking. The use of
ODA body part tags was also mentioned in this paper. We are cooperating in
a European research project, funded under the Esprit Programme, where we do
pilot implementations of ODA. It was not exactly clear to me how your group
intends to handle ODA body parts but I would like to explain our position.

		At the last Hannover Trade Fair in Germany ICL, Bull,
        	Olivetti, Siemens and Oce performed
		a demonstration of ODIF exchange over an  X.400
	      network.  Our experience in this demonstration learned
	      that the simple use of a body part tag  is  not  suffi-
	      cient.  There  is a need to know the Document Architec-
	      ture and  the  Document Application Profile  used  in
	      the  document.  These matters have also been signaled by
	      the CCITT and in the 1988 revision of the standard there
	      will be a  somewhat different handling of ODA body
	      parts.

              Therefore MHS experts of the 11 companies that consider
              to  participate in the 1989 ODA demonstration have come
              together. The companies involved include the 5  demons-
              trators  of  this  year  and  further  Nixdorf, British
              Telecom, C-labs, Apple Europe and IBM European Network-
              ing  Center.  They  set up a more detailed scenario for
              the use of 84 X.400 for ODIF document transfer.  These
              recommendations  are  based on both the CCITT X.400 and
              the ISO MOTIS standards and have taken into  account  a
              smooth  transition  towards  the  1988  revision of the
              X.400 standard.  Our recommendations have as little as
              possible effect on the MHS itself.



              Our approach for conveyance of ODA by MHS IPMS

              The following is proposed as a  medium  term  solution,
              i.e.  for  the lifetime of MHS based on the 1984 recom-
              mendations of the CCITT. When 1988  based  system  take
              over  their place, a smooth transition is possible with
              the solution sketched in this proposal.

	      For P2:
		 An ODA document will be transferred as a single body part
		 with tag 12:

		 oda  [12]  IMPLICIT OCTET STRING

		 The content of the Octet string will contain (using ASN.1
		 basic encoding ) a value of type OdaBodyPart, which is a
		 Sequence containing Parameters and Data components:

		 OdaBodyPart  ::= SEQUENCE {
			OdaBodyPartParameters,
			OdaData }

		 The parameters and Data components are each aligned to
		 Annex E of T.411 (1988) (ie ISO 8613-1)


In this way it is up to the ODA implementation to worry about the handling
of specific ODA content  information. We envisage that to ODA
implementation can send a reply message when it is not able to handle the
specific Document Application Profile that is carried in the body, just
like you would want an 1988 MHS implementation to refuse such a message.


I think that besides our configuration there are no ODA/X.400 systems
operational for the moment so I don't think that implementations which
dont't use OdaBodyPartParameters need much attention. 

I hope this can be an input to your discussions and I would gladly receive
more detailed information of your ideas on the handling of ODA body parts.



Maarten Schoonwater
PODA project team
Oce Nederland
Venlo Netherlands
mhsc@oce.nl  or ...!mcvax!oce-rd1!mhsc