OSI/MHS Orientation Guide

Building Your Message Handling System
OSI/MHS Orientation Guide—424829-001
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Where to Look
To perform this task, you must understand the concepts of the X.400 P7 protocol and
also more general X.400 concepts pertaining to naming, addressing, and routing. You
also need to know enough about the architecture of OSI/MHS, the underlying OSI
products, and how the standards for P7 and supporting OSI services are implemented on
both sides of the connection to be able to troubleshoot interoperation or conformance
problems, should they arise.
To write an RUA, you must be thoroughly familiar with the X.400 P7 protocol and
aware of how the relevant standards are implemented by OSI/MHS. You must also
know how to use Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ASN.1) for encoding and decoding
protocol data. (Even if your development environment provides ASN.1 services, you
will need to know ASN.1 to verify compliance with specific standards or agreements.)
Where to Look
In addition to manuals and educational materials from Compaq, you are likely to need
information of the following types:
•
Manuals and conformance statements (PICS) from the vendor supplying the RUA
(if you did not write it yourself)
•
Copies of the CCITT X.400 series of Recommendations
•
X.400 names and addresses (O/R names) of members of your user community
"About This Manual" lists and describes X.400 Recommendations and related
documents you might need to comply with specific national or international regulations
and agreements.
To obtain a list of existing X.400 RUAs with which OSI/MHS has been shown to
interoperate, contact your Compaq field representative.
Table 1-7 includes Compaq manuals and educational media that help you integrate
RUAs with OSI/MHS. Items are listed in one possible reading order, but you will
certainly find yourself moving back and forth among the manuals as you work.
For brevity, Table 1-7 omits sources that describe how to set up an OSI/MHS
environment. If you have not yet set up an MHS environment, also see the list for
“Setting Up a Backbone Messaging Network or Hub.”
In the table, represents a manual, represents a videotape, represents a
workbook, represents a lecture course, and represents information available to
Compaq technical support personnel through the Courier application.
Note. The remote P7 interface is one of several interfaces you can use to integrate
applications with OSI/MHS. Table 1-10, in the section on “Integrating EDI Applications,”
contrasts the available interfaces.