A critical analysis of the X.400 model of message handling systems

The CCITT X.400 model of store and forward Message Handling Systems (MHS) serves as a common basis for the definition of electronic mail services and protocols both within CCITT and ISO. This paper presents an analysis of this model and its related recommendations from two perspectives. First the concepts of service, protocol and interface are discussed together with their application to this model; second the positioning within ISO's reference model for Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) is commented on

Mark 4A antenna control system data handling architecture study

A high-level review was conducted to provide an analysis of the existing architecture used to handle data and implement control algorithms for NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas and to make system-level recommendations for improving this architecture so that the DSN antennas can support the ever-tightening requirements of the next decade and beyond. It was found that the existing system is seriously overloaded, with processor utilization approaching 100 percent. A number of factors contribute to this overloading, including dated hardware, inefficient software, and a message-passing strategy that depends on serial connections between machines. At the same time, the system has shortcomings and idiosyncrasies that require extensive human intervention. A custom operating system kernel and an obscure programming language exacerbate the problems and should be modernized. A new architecture is presented that addresses these and other issues. Key features of the new architecture include a simplified message passing hierarchy that utilizes a high-speed local area network, redesign of particular processing function algorithms, consolidation of functions, and implementation of the architecture in modern hardware and software using mainstream computer languages and operating systems. The system would also allow incremental hardware improvements as better and faster hardware for such systems becomes available, and costs could potentially be low enough that redundancy would be provided economically. Such a system could support DSN requirements for the foreseeable future, though thorough consideration must be given to hard computational requirements, porting existing software functionality to the new system, and issues of fault tolerance and recovery

Office automation

Bibliography: p. 100-104.Office automation systems have become an essential tool for the operation of the modern office. With the emphasis of a modern office being placed on efficiency and ease of communication, office automation systems have become the backbone of successful businesses. COSNET is a prototype office automation system designed and implemented at the Department of the University of Cape Town and runs on Personal Computers that are linked to a NCR UNIX TOWER, which acts as the host. This dissertation investigates the different facilities supported by some of the office automation systems compared in this thesis, and describes the COSNET features. This prototype office automation system supports many of the facilities that are supported by large office automation systems. COSNET allows the user to define any MS-DOS based editor or word processor, and uses a simple editor for the creation of mail. The electronic filing facility allows documents to be created, filed, retrieved and deleted, and thus provides the users with the necessary features for document exchange. A user may set access permissions to each of his documents and may grant other users either read or write access to a specific document. The mail facility lets the user read, file, forward, delete and print a message, and supports classification of mail. A calendar facility is used as an electronic diary and stores all the user's schedules. These schedules may be viewed in either daily, weekly and monthly display modes. Read and write access to the calendar can be set by the user, in order to allow other users to manipulate his schedules. Any MS-DOS based application software can be added to COSNET. This facility allows the COSNET user to configure the office automation system to simulate the office environment. COSNET thus supports most of the necessary features required by an office automation system

Forum Session at the First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC03)

The First International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC) was held in Trento, December 15-18, 2003. The focus of the conference ---Service Oriented Computing (SOC)--- is the new emerging paradigm for distributed computing and e-business processing that has evolved from object-oriented and component computing to enable building agile networks of collaborating business applications distributed within and across organizational boundaries. Of the 181 papers submitted to the ICSOC conference, 10 were selected for the forum session which took place on December the 16th, 2003. The papers were chosen based on their technical quality, originality, relevance to SOC and for their nature of being best suited for a poster presentation or a demonstration. This technical report contains the 10 papers presented during the forum session at the ICSOC conference. In particular, the last two papers in the report ere submitted as industrial papers