| CAE Specification |
|---|
| Data Link Provider Interface (DLPI) |
| X/Open Document Number: C614 |
| ISBN: 1-85912-196-9 |
©February 1997, The Open Group All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.
The base document for this specification was Copyright 1991 by UNIX International. See Acknowledgements.
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The Open Group is an international open systems organization that is leading the way in creating the infrastructure needed for the development of network-centric computing and the information superhighway. Formed in 1996 by the merger of the X/Open Company and the Open Software Foundation, The Open Group is supported by most of the world's largest user organizations, information systems vendors and software suppliers. By combining the strengths of open systems specifications and a proven branding scheme with collaborative technology development and advanced research, The Open Group is well positioned to assist user organizations, vendors and suppliers in the development and implementation of products supporting the adoption and proliferation of open systems.
With more than 300 member companies, The Open Group helps the IT industry to advance technologically while managing the change caused by innovation. It does this by:
The Open Group operates in all phases of the open systems technology lifecycle including innovation, market adoption, product development and proliferation. Presently, it focuses on seven strategic areas: open systems application platform development, architecture, distributed systems management, interoperability, distributed computing environment, security, and the information superhighway. The Open Group is also responsible for the management of the UNIX trade mark on behalf of the industry.
This description is used to cover the whole Process developed and evolved by X/Open. It includes the identification of requirements for open systems, development of CAE and Preliminary Specifications through an industry consensus review and adoption procedure (in parallel with formal standards work), and the development of tests and conformance criteria.
This leads to the preparation of a Product Standard which is the name used for the documentation that records the conformance requirements (and other information) to which a vendor may register a product. There are currently two forms of Product Standard, namely the Profile Definition and the Component Definition, although these will eventually be merged into one.
The X/Open brand logo is used by vendors to demonstrate that their products conform to the relevant Product Standard. By use of the X/Open brand they guarantee, through the X/Open Trade Mark Licence Agreement (TMLA), to maintain their products in conformance with the Product Standard so that the product works, will continue to work, and that any problems will be fixed by the vendor.
The Open Group publishes a wide range of technical literature, the main part of which is focused on specification development and product documentation, but which also includes Guides, Snapshots, Technical Studies, Branding and Testing documentation, industry surveys and business titles.
There are several types of specification:
CAE (Common Applications Environment) Specifications are the stable specifications that form the basis for our product standards, which are used to develop X/Open branded systems. These specifications are intended to be used widely within the industry for product development and procurement purposes.
Anyone developing products that implement a CAE Specification
can enjoy the benefits of a single, widely supported industry standard.
In addition, they can demonstrate product compliance through the
X/Open brand.
CAE Specifications are published as soon as they are developed,
so enabling vendors to proceed with development of conformant products
without delay.
Preliminary Specifications usually address an emerging area of technology and consequently are not yet supported by multiple sources of stable conformant implementations. They are published for the purpose of validation through implementation of products. A Preliminary Specification is not a draft specification; rather, it is as stable as can be achieved, through applying The Open Group's rigorous development and review procedures.
Preliminary Specifications are analogous to the trial-use standards issued by formal standards organizations, and developers are encouraged to develop products on the basis of them. However, experience through implementation work may result in significant (possibly upwardly incompatible) changes before its progression to becoming a CAE Specification. While the intent is to progress Preliminary Specifications to corresponding CAE Specifications, the ability to do so depends on consensus among Open Group members.
The Open Group publishes specifications on behalf of industry consortia. For example, it publishes the NMF SPIRIT procurement specifications on behalf of the Network Management Forum. It also publishes Technology Specifications relating to OSF/1, DCE, OSF/Motif and CDE.
Technology Specifications (formerly AES Specifications) are often candidates for consensus review, and may be adopted as CAE Specifications, in which case the relevant Technology Specification is superseded by a CAE Specification.
In addition, The Open Group publishes:
This includes product documentation - programmer's guides, user manuals, and so on - relating to the Pre-structured Technology Projects (PSTs), such as DCE and CDE. It also includes the Single UNIX Documentation, designed for use as common product documentation for the whole industry.
These provide information that is useful in the evaluation, procurement, development or management of open systems, particularly those that relate to the CAE Specifications. The Open Group Guides are advisory, not normative, and should not be referenced for purposes of specifying or claiming conformance to a Product Standard.
Technical Studies present results of analyses performed on subjects of interest in areas relevant to The Open Group's Technical Program. They are intended to communicate the findings to the outside world so as to stimulate discussion and activity in other bodies and the industry in general.
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As with all live documents, CAE Specifications require revision to align with new developments and associated international standards. To distinguish between revised specifications which are fully backwards compatible and those which are not:
Readers should note that Corrigenda may apply to any publication. Corrigenda information is published on the World-Wide Web at http://www.opengroup.org/public/pubs.
Full catalogue and ordering information on all Open Group publications is available on the World-Wide Web at http://www.opengroup.org/public/pubs.
The Data Link Provider Interface (DLPI) enables a data link service user to access and use any of a variety of conforming data link service providers without special knowledge of the provider's protocol.
Specifically, the interface is intended to support X.25 LAPB, BX.25 level 2, SDL C, ISDN LAPD, Ethernet, CSMA/CD, FDDI, token ring, token bus, Bisync, Frame Relay, ATM, Fiber Channel and HIPPI. Readers should note that the list of data links supported by the interface may be augmented and is published on the World-Wide Web in the DLPI Corrigendum U019 at http://www.opengroup.org (under Sales and Ordering). This Corrigendum will contain relevant additional information such as recognised implementors' agreements/guidelines for common data link providers. A printed copy of this Web page may also be obtained from The Open Group on request (address on inside front page of this specification).
Among the expected data link service users are implementations of the OSI network layer and SNA path control.
The interface specifies access to data link service providers, and does not define a specific protocol implementation. Thus, issues of network management, protocol performance, and performance analysis tools are beyond the scope of this document and should be addressed by specific implementations of a data link provider. However, accompanying each provider implementation should be information that describes the protocol-specific behavior of that provider. Currently, there are plans to come up with a set of implementors' agreements/guidelines for common data link providers. These agreements will address issues such as DLSAP address space, subsequent addresses, ppa access and control, QOS, supported services etc.
A Glossary and Index are also provided.
Motif®, OSF/1®, and UNIX® are registered trademarks and the "X Device"TM; and The Open GroupTM; are trademarks of The Open Group.
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