Subject: APPN Search Support for Non-LU resource types

From: "David B. Bryant 444-4399" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 93 14:40:37 EDT

Dave - Although the architecture "seems" to imply that searching for
non-LU resource types has always been around, the finer details have
never been ironed out.  This is why none of the existing APPN products
will support it.  This is something, you would also discover when you
attempted to implement it.

For example:  What is the appropriate associated resource hierarchy for a
non-LU resource type?  Is it NNCP, ENCP, LU, Non-LU resource?  Or is it
NNCP, ENCP, Non-LU resource?  This is particularly perplexing when these
non-LU resources might be a 'printer' which is really being serviced by
an LU.  Or the non-LU resource might be a disk drive which is not being
serviced by an LU.  And, of course, what if you get duplicate responses
for a non-LU resource?  Is this an error? etc...

Because these issues have not been thought completely through, I would
submit that the architecture is not complete in its specification of
searching for non-LU resource types.  And hence, we cannot, expect
existing products to 'fix' their non-support of this function.

Because, however, this function is very important to the longevity of
APPN we do have an existing project to fully define APPN DS support for
search type all (finding all occurrences of something) and searching for
non-LU resource types.  This effort is being led by Ralph Case who can be
contacted at [email-masked].  He will be interested in any
requirements, ideas, or solutions you may have regarding this topic.

With respect to the registry of non-LU resource types, we cannot allow
customers to define resources types for the very same reason we cannot
allow vendors to do the same.  If one customer decides a type x'39' is a
printer and another customer decides a type x'39' is a disk drive, and
then their networks get interconnected in some manner (border nodes etc),
we've got a problem.  So I believe the only effective way for us to
manage this situation will be for the AIW to establish a registry of
non-LU resource types.  But the final answer to this issue will rest with
Ralph and his work in developing the complete architecture to support
this function.

Sorry for the late response, but life's been busy around here lately.
Thanks for sharing this and any other APPN concerns you may have with the
rest of the AIW via this forum.  I truly hope we can foster more public
discussion of APPN in this way.

Regards, Dave

---

From: [email-masked] (Dave Finnie)
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 93 09:13:55 EST

Dave,

Thanks for your response. What you've said makes sense. I'll look forward to seeing
it fitted into the architecture: To use a cliche, I think its one of those Value Added
things that APPN can offer that could be really useful in the long term.

Dave