OSI management and job transfer services

An important aspect of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) is the organization of the distributed processing activity and the resources required for its successful prosecution. The work on Application and Systems Management, and Job Transfer and Manipulation deals with the specifics of distributed processing activities. In ISO/TC97/SC16/WG4 work on OSI management protocols is defining an overall framework for specifying management standards and identifying the subset of management standards that can be developed speedily. This paper presents an overview of this work and the progress being made. In ISO/TC97/ SC16/WG5 the model of a Job Transfer and Manipulation system (JTM) has been defined into four functional components--job submission system, job processing system, job monitoring system, and manipulation submission system. The concepts of the JTM specification along with a number of considerations that are common with the OSI management protocol work are also presented in the paper. A recent upsurge of interest in these areas has led to an increase in participation and the sense of urgency for advancing the development of the draft specifications--there should now be an acceleration of activity in this important aspect of OSI.