Subject: September93 CIW Minutes

From: "Jack Sanders (8-444-4459)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Sep 93 16:08:19 EDT

===== Preliminaries

The September93 meeting of the CPI-C Implementers' Workshop was held
September 8-10, 1993, in Bellevue, WA.  Jack Sanders, CIW Chair,
conducted the meeting.

Twenty-six persons representing 11 companies attended.  The companies
represented are listed below.  The list of attendees is available upon
request.

   ATTACHMATE CORPORATION          BOEING COMPUTER SERVICES
   CGK COMPUTER (SIEMENS)          COMPUWARE CORPORATION
   CONTROL RESOURCES CORPORATION   DATA CONNECTION, LTD
   HITACHI, LTD                    IBM CORPORATION
   MICROSOFT CORPORATION           SYSTEMS STRATEGIES, INC.
   WALL DATA, INC.

===== Meeting summary

The CIW took the following action at the concluding plenary session:

  Closed Pages status was granted for the work item below, based
  on the contributed document with modifications agreed to in
  the SIG working meeting.

    - Non-blocking

  Approved Pages status was granted for the work items below, based
  on the contributed documents with modifications agreed to in
  the SIG working meetings.

    - Extensions for OSI TP (as amended)
    - FDX conversations and expedited data

  Approved Direction status was granted for the new work item below,
  based on the contributed document.

    - Queue-level processing and multi-threading support

===== General

The status of the CIW Member Agreement was reviewed.  The final version
of the Member Agreement will be mailed to CIW members when a cooperative
agreement with X/Open has been concluded.

The CIW is discussing with X/Open the adoption by X/Open of CPI-C 2.0 and
publication of an X/Open Preliminary Spec in 94.  If sufficient progress
is made on the CPI-C 2.0 work items, X/Open CPI-C would be
based on the AP/CP version of the CPI-C Spec approved at the December93
CIW meeting.  Both the CIW and X/Open want to ensure that X/Open CPI-C is
the same as the CPI-C 2.0 approved by the CIW.

Debbie Prevost, CIW Editor, presented the schedule for the next draft of
the CPI-C 2.0 Spec based on the September93 CIW action.  It will be
available 10/1/93 on the document library for review.  Comments are due
by 10/14/93, when an inspection meeting will be held.  The new reference
draft will be available on 10/28/93 and will be used for page numbers and
current text when requesting changes to the architecture.

Questions about the documentation should be addressed to
[email-masked]

===== SIG meeting reports

Productive SIG working meetings were held on the topics listed below.  A
brief summary of each SIG working meeting is included.  A more complete
account of each SIG meeting will be distributed to the SIG via e-mail.

  Full Duplex
    The Full-Duplex SIG reviewed the AP-level proposal, discussing
    secondary return codes for CM_CONVERSATION_ENDING on calls to the
    send queue in detail.  It was decided that CM_CONVERSATION_ENDING
    (with the asociated secondary information) would not be returned to
    calls to the send queue; instead just the primary return code
    corresponding to the secondary information would be returned.  This
    decision is compatible with the secondary return code SIG's direction
    and provides an alternate and comparable solution.

    The SIG agreed to request AP status for the proposal document (with
    the above changes to the return codes), and AP was subsequently
    granted in the plenary session of the CIW.

  Non-blocking
    The NB SIG reviewed a CP proposal for non-blocking enhancements,
    including consolidation of return codes, clarifications of
    non-blocking usage, and changes to pseudonym files.  The proposal
    was granted Closed Pages status during the closing plenary session.
    The SIG also discussed an enhancement to Wait_For_Completion for
    ease of use and agreed to the direction.  The change pages will
    be prepared for an interim approval, along with usage notes for
    callback function on specific platforms.

  Extensions for OSI TP
    The OSI TP SIG reviewed some minor corrections and additions to
    the July draft of the CPI-C 2.0 Specification, including the addition
    of an Extract_Transaction_Control (CMETC) call. The proposed changes
    were granted Approved Pages (as amended) status during the closing
    plenary. The enhancements will be included in the next draft of the
    CPI-C 2.0 Specification.

  Directory
    The directory SIG met and worked through a number of discussion
    topics.  See the detailed minutes for a complete report.
    In general, the CIW agreed to 1) continue the direction of using
    the Set_Partner_ID call and 2) allow specification of a
    DN or PFID.  A proposal for specification of the directory name space
    (e.g., OSF or X.500) will be distributed shortly.  Advancement of
    the directory proposal will (hopefully) follow the security SIG,
    i.e., interim AP status in October/November and CP status at the
    December meeting.

  Security
    In the SIG meeting, it was stated that the LU 6.2 architecture was
    not ready for disclosure to the CIW.  The current plan is to
    make the architecture available at the end of September.
    Approved pages status will be requested approximately 30 days after
    the architecture is disclosed.  The intention is then to request
    Closed Pages at the December93 CIW.

    The proposed change pages (available in ciw/sig/sec/secpages.ps on
    ibmstandards.cary.ibm.com) were reviewed.  A couple of changes
    were identified (need to define "partner LU principal name", need to
    state what results are returned if the partner LU principal name is
    incorrect or malformed.)

    In addition, a new work item, Security for OSI TP, was proposed
    by Jeff Hildebrand.  The work item has two parts:
    1.  Map the conversation_security_type characteristic from CPI-C to
        specific usage of GULS in OSI-TP.  (Specific standards are
        GULS - DIS 11586, ACSE Adm2 - IS 8644/94 and 8650/92.)
    2.  Define the API the CRM would use to access the security service.

    The CIW subsequently accepted the new work item.  Rich Harris will
    submit a detailed proposal for an interim AD approval before
    the December93 CIW.  The intention is to request AP on a complete
    proposal at the December93 CIW.

  Secondary Return Codes
    The 2RC SIG reviewed a refined proposal from the June CIW.  The
    direction is to provide secondary information for problem
    determination as opposed to secondary return codes for use in
    program logic.  The mechanism of allowing the program to access
    secondary information, the Extract_Secondary_Information call,
    was extensively discussed.  An area requiring further study
    is the interaction of the Extract call with callback function.

  Conformance for CPI-C Level 2
    The Conformance SIG discussed a general direction for defining CPI-C
    2.0 mandatory support and optional support groups.  The agreed
    direction is that CPI-C mandatory support would include CPI-C 1.0,
    and that additional support groups would be defined and classified
    either as part of mandatory support or as optional support.

  Automatic Data Conversion
    Jeff Hildebrand distributed a descriptive overview of the required
    functions and offered to contribute a proposal for consideration
    for AD status.  The CIW welcomes a contribution in this area.

===== Architecture interpretation

Ref:  Note from Jack Sanders to ciw-general, 8/9/93, subject:
Conversation characteristics incompatibilities

A proposed CPI-C 1.2 change (Alternative 1 in the referenced note) to
prevent the setting of incompatible conversation characteristics was
reviewed.  Agreement was reached that CM_PROGRAM_STATE_CHECK will be
returned to the Set_Send_Type, Set_Prepare_To_Receive_Type, and
Set_Deallocate_Type calls issued in Initialize-Incoming state.  Specific
changes to the CPI-C Spec will follow.

===== Implementers' presentation

Hanna Mehl of CGK Computer (Siemens) made a well-received presentation
describing the implementation of the LU6.2 - OSI TP - Gateway.  It allows
communication between the Siemens Universal Transaction Monitor and other
transaction monitors using LU 6.2 or OSI TP, using X/Open CPI-C as the
API to both protocol stacks.  Of particular interest was the handling of
the differences between X/Open CPI-C and the OSI TP services.  Traces of
two communicating CPI-C programs and of the resulting OSI TP protocol
flow below were included.  Hanna also noted Siemens' participation in the
European Community's ASSET project to define the API Library, including
CPI-C 2.0, for access to OSI TP and CCR.  Thanks to Hanna for her
excellent presentation.

Suggestions and volunteers for implementer or user presentations are
hereby solicited for the December93 CIW meeting.

===== Documentation

In addition to SIG materials, the following documents were
distributed at the meeting.  The document's directory/filename in
the CIW document library on ibmstandards.cary.ibm.com follows in
parentheses.

  CPI-C 2.0 First Review Draft (July 1993) (/ciw/spec/20spec.psb)
    This draft contains the AP changes from the June93 CIW meeting.

  Cumulative CPI-C 1.2 Spec error file (/ciw/spec/cpic12.err)

===== Upcoming Meeting Notices

The next meeting of the CIW will be held December 1-3, 1993, at the
Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Research Triangle Park, NC.  The agenda and
registration information will be posted at a later date.  The following
items will be included in the meeting's technical objectives:

  Closed Pages status for

    - FDX conversations and expedited data
    - Extensions for OSI TP
    - Directory (if AP is reached between meetings)
    - Security for LU 6.2 (if AP is reached between meetings)

  Approved Pages status for

    - Secondary information (if AD is reached between meetings)
    - Queue-Level Processing and Multi-Threading Support
    - Security for OSI TP (if AD is reached between meetings)

  Approved Direction status for

    - Automatic Data Conversion

1994 Meeting

  March 8 - 10, 1994 Raleigh, NC

=====
Any corrections or additions?

Jack Sanders, CIW Chair
[email-masked]