Subject: Reminder: Invitation to TN3270 Interoperability Event

From: Michael Boe <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 17:45:16 -0500 (EST)

For those who haven't yet responded, here it is again: an invitation to the TIE
#3.  If you *think* you are going to attend, but haven't been sent email from
me regarding schedule, directions, places to stay, etc, then please email me
<[email-masked]> immediately and we'll get you signed up.

thanks,
/msb

OK.  It's that time of the year! Cisco Systems is pleased to announce
the third TN3270E Interoperability Event. This event will be held at
Cisco Systems' Research Triangle Park site (in North Carolina, USA) from
November 17 through 19, 1997. The first day of the meeting is to be an
interim meeting of the IETF TN3270E Working Group. The last two days are
dedicated to interoperability testing of current TN3270E client and
server products. Attendees are free to test any aspect TN3270E-related
function during this event.  Particular focus will be placed on TN3270E
printing.

Any interested party can attend the informal meeting of the Working
Group on the first day.  However, we are restricting attendance on the
final two days to vendors/maintainers of TN3270E client or server
products which are either in production or in pre-production customer
test (aka beta). An invitation to attend the final two days is also
extended to organizations producing or maintaining TN3270/TN3270E
functional-test suites (performance or stress testing will *not* be
performed, just functional tests dealing with RFC1647 and the new draft
revision).

Results from the interoperability test-portion of this event are not be
published or disseminated by any of the attendees without consent of all
the attendees; the purpose of the testing is to encourage a higher
degree of interoperability between TN3270E client/server
implementations.

There is limited space at both portions of this meeting, and we do not
want to turn away any qualified organization from attending; therefore,
we ask that each attending organization to limit themselves to having at
most three attendees present on any given day. Exceptions will be made
for organizations bringing both client and server products to the
interoperability portion of the event.

Cisco will provide "standard" equipment for the test: PCs running
Win95/NT, or OS/2 Warp. The standard networking gear for the PCs in
the lab is twisted-pair 10MBit Ethernet; some token-ring NICs are
available too. Server vendors may want to bring hardware platforms
along; we may have the hardware platform your product runs on, but it's
unlikely our OS/environment is configured 100% compatibly (but email me
if in doubt).  Bus&Tag & ESCON connectivity to MVS and VM mainframes is
also readily available.

There is no charge to attend this meeting. Cisco is providing the
meeting site and computing facilities gratis; attendees are responsible
for organizing and paying for their own accommodation, transport, meals,
etc. If your organization wishes to attend the TIE, please email me
<[email-masked]> with the following details:

  o  list of attendees and which days they will be attending.

  For client vendors (each product to be tested):
  o  kind of PC needed, including the following details:
        --  Hardware platform (eg 486+ Intel)
        --  Desired Operating System (Win95, Solaris, Linux 2.x,
Win3.1,             etc)
        --  Connectivity (ethernet, tr, etc) desired, if it matters

  o  whether TN3270E printing will be tested or not.

  For server vendors (each product to be tested):
  o  if not bringing packaged hardware solution, what kind of hardware
is needed:
        --  Hardware platform (eg 486+ Intel)
        --  Desired Operating System (Win95, Solaris, Linux 2.x,
Win3.1,             etc)
        --  Client connectivity (ethernet, tr, etc) desired, if
it             matters
        --  Mainframe connectivity (SRB, B&T, ESCON)

  For TN3270E funtional test-suite vendors (each product to be tested):
  o   same questions as "server vendors" above.

  o   whether it tests clients, servers, or both.

The following is a rough schedule of the event.

              DRAFT SCEDULE FOR TIE at CISCO SYSTEMS (RTP)
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Day 1 (Nov 17, 1997): [Informal Working Group Meeting]
*********************
 8:30am- 9:00am attendees arrive at the Cisco Systems Woodland Building
 9:00am- 7:00pm Discussion of Tn3270E enhancements, including:
                * Using TLS and other security techniques with TN3270E;
                * How to do TN3270E session location & redirection;
                * IPDS over TN3270E
                * State of proposed MIBS (response-time,
server                           operation);

Day 2 (Nov 18, 1997): [Interoperability Test]
*********************
 9:00am-  9:30am Attendees arrive at Cisco Systems Woodland Building
 9:30am- 12:30pm Setup of clients and servers
 1:30pm-  6:30pm Interoperability testing of clients and servers

Day 3 (Nov 19, 1997): [TN3270E WG Interim Meeting]
*********************
 9:00am-  3:30pm Interoperability testing of clients and servers
 3:30pm-  6:00pm Collation of progress & problems found; discussion
                 of possible compliance certification & of "virtual"
                 interoperability access.

One final detail:  we ask the client vendors to bring a copy of each
type of to-be-tested TN3270E software for each of the server vendors to
take away with them.  Doing so will help ease the burden we all have of
resolving interoperability problems.

Thanks very much.  I hope to see you at the event.

/msb