Seattle, Washington
March 17-20, 1997

A little drizzle didn't put a damper on The Open Group's Member Meeting in Seattle. In fact, an informal straw poll of attendees reveals that most see "Solutions for Integrat ing the Enterprise" as the best meeting The Open Group has held yet. The event was attended by more than 200 delegates (see the end of this section for a full list of participating compa nies) who effectively leveraged this quarterly opportunity to meet with other professionals and learn how other organiza tions are facing the challenge of integrating an array of IS solutions into their computing environments.

Members participated in a number of forums:

The forums provided an invaluable opportunity for The Open Group's mem bers, from customers and consultants, to system vendors and ISVs, to share infor mation, influence, and involvement related to key IT issues.

INDEX

The Open Group Membership

The Open Group's membership, with its Customer and Software Councils, is the industry's only consensus forum in which the leading IT suppliers come together in partnership with buyers to bring greater value to the market. At these quarterly meetings, the Councils are joined by rep resentatives of The Open Group's sponsors and specification members.

The Open Group Councils meet four times per year. Upcoming meeting ven ues and topics are:

(It is difficult to obtain hotel rooms in London at this time of year so please register early.)

Note: In order to start a new cycle, the December 1997 meeting has been moved to January 1998.

The Open Group Customer Council

Information technology and applications are key components in the business suc cess of any organization. Protecting investment in those applications and en suring that the IT industry delivers products based upon customers' business re quirements are the reasons for the formation of The Open Group Customer Council (OGCC).

Because The Open Group is the industry's only consensus forum in which the leading IT suppliers come together in partnership with buyers to bring greater value to the market, OGCC members are uniquely positioned to bring customer power into the industry planning cycle.

Members of the Customer Council experience:

Influence ­ The OGCC presently repre sents organizations that account for over 25% of worldwide information technol ogy buying power. The Council currently nominates three full voting Directors to The Open Group Board of Directors; these Directors represent 23% of the Board and will increase proportionally to Council growth.

Information ­ The data necessary to make informed decisions relative to an organization's future information tech nology strategy is made freely available. Member company representatives incor porate this information into their technology planning, ensure secondary distribu tion as appropriate throughout their organizations, and work with their man agement to incorporate an open systems procurement policy based upon The Open Group specifications and product standards.

Validation ­ Council members have the opportunity to validate their perception of industry directions, change, and value through a host of forums: Council meetings, joint meetings with members of as sociated vendors councils, member dialogue, regional forums, and more.

Action ­ The Open Systems Process Pro gram Groups and Task Groups allow members to express their organization's needs and priorities by participating in the industry's most complete, and only worldwide, user requirements survey and requirements process while working with other user and vendor members toward common goals.

Return On Investment ­ Member organi zations can reasonably expect a substantial return on investment from Council membership. This is obtained by incorporating the industry information, peer knowledge, and leverage gained from active council participation into the organization's information technology programs to achieve reduced cycle times and costs.

At the Seattle one-half day meeting:

The Council meeting format was discussed and a new calendar agreed, with meetings scheduled for January, April, July and October 1998.

Contact:

The Open Group Software Council

Software of all types is the key to success in IS solutions: middleware, application packages, and tools for development and integration. The companies that develop and supply this software have a vital role in the open market process.

Because The Open Group is the industry's only consensus forum in which the leading IT suppliers come together in partnership with buyers to bring greater value to the market, Software Council members are uniquely positioned to bring software power into the industry planning cycle.

The Software Council is open to all members of The Open Group with an interest in software, whether they are system integrators, ISVs or customers.

Members of the Software Council experience:

Influence ­ The Council currently nomi nates a full voting Director to The Open Group Board of Directors and two full voting seats on the Technical Managers' Committee.

Information ­ Data necessary to make in formed decisions relative to a company's future technical and marketing strategy is made available. Member company representatives incorporate this information into their planning, ensure secondary distribution as appropriate throughout their organizations, and work to incorporate an open systems policy based upon The Open Group specifications and product standards.

Validation ­ Council members have the opportunity to validate their perception of industry directions, change, and value through a host of forums: Council meetings, joint meetings with members of the Customer Councils, member dialogue and more.

Action ­ The Program Groups and Task Groups allow members to express their organization's needs and priorities by participating in the industry's most com

plete, and only worldwide, user requirements process while working with other user and vendor members toward common goals.

Return On Investment ­ Member organi zations can reasonably expect a substantial return on investment from Council membership. This is obtained by incorporating the industry information, peer knowledge, and leverage gained from active council participation into the organization's information technology programs to achieve reduced cycle times and costs and increase market coverage and exposure.

Seattle Meeting
http://www.opengroup.org/public/member/q197/

This was a different, shorter format from recent meetings, because the normal "Technology Sessions" had been moved into the Thursday plenary. This left only one-half day of business specific to the Software Council. During the Council meeting:

"What's Hot at The Open Group"

At the Council's request, Mike Lambert gave an update on a number of key projects:

Standards Evolution

Meeting format

The Council approved the new Member Meeting format along with a number of specific recommendations for the June meeting.

UniForum Association

Tom Mace gave a progress update on discussions between UniForum and The Open Group. There was discussion as to what benefits this merger would bring to The Open Group, UniForum and their respective members.

Contact:

Plenary Sessions

Solutions for Integrating the Enterprise

At a time when many organizations face the challenge of integrating an array of IS solutions into their computing environments, The Open Group strives to deliver opportunities for individuals to exchange ideas with other IT professionals and learn from the successes ­ and the failures ­ other companies have experienced.

Plenary Session - Wednesday

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Steven Jenkins, Deputy Manager and Chief Engineer of California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory addressed the issues involved in integrat ing Microsoft technologies and products into a standards-based heterogeneous computing environment. He focused on how JPL is addressing issues such as en terprise security aspects of Commercial Off-the Shelf (COTS) applications on Microsoft® Windows® desktops and systems management in a DCE-based archi tecture.

Kaiser Permanente

Ronald Becker Williams, Strategic Planning Specialist for Kaiser Permanente's IT Services Department, described Kaiser's efforts to develop a DCE-based infra structure, construct an environment with secure Single Sign-On capability and in tegrate with a legacy environment.

Secom Information System Co., Ltd.

Secom Ltd. is one of the largest security service companies in Japan, providing se curity support and monitoring for its clients. Mr. Yoichi Tao, Chairman and CEO, delivered a presentation on Secom's extensive security services and their innovative use of Internet and Intranet technology.

The Boeing Company

Mark Fulgham, Senior Principal Scientist with The Boeing Company focused on end-to-end IS management, which is the key to multi-vendor cooperative comput ing for companies re-engineering their businesses. He described how the orga nization manages the increased costs of ownership that network-centric comput ing requires and how they expect to implement cost-effective end-to-end reli ability measures that had been considered impossible for decentralized com puting environments.

Plenary Session - Thursday

These more technology-focused sessions have recently been offered exclu sively to the Software Council. In Seattle, we opened them up to the entire membership.

The Evolution of Object Technology

Microsoft Corporation

The benefit of doing business over the Internet directly with customers, vendors and partners is a fundamental business driver that is causing a profound change in how organizations are approaching issues of enterprise integration and appli cation architecture. Today, traditional client/server systems are evolving to multi -tier architectures that are increasingly integrated with enterprise systems. The combination of standards-based component software and rapidly evolving Internet technologies is providing a new platform for distributed applications. Bob Muglia, vice president of Microsoft Server Applications Division, discussed these trends and described how Microsoft is evolving its platforms, tools, and tech nologies to help customers gain business advantage and extend existing enterprise investments.

IONA Technologies

CORBA and IIOP are leading the way in providing a "lingua franca" for compo nent integration across diverse programming languages, operating systems, and networks. In this session, Mr. Annrai O'Toole, vice president, Development, for IONA Technologies discussed the fundamentals of the CORBA architecture along with its support for higher level services such as transactions, security, and system management.

ObjectAutomation

Systems are becoming too complex to manage in a rigid, monolithic environ ment and distributed objects offer some of the answers. John Ham described ObjectAutomation's approach to distributed objects for Industrial Automation and Process Control. ObjectAutomation's strategy is to create a "universal controller" that enables users to focus on the problem rather than the technology. Because no one solution provider can solve every problem, the controller, rather than being a single product, should be a framework for accepting pieces created by experts in spe cific problem domains ObjectAutomation is currently develop ing a distributed object framework that will simplify integration of objects pro vided by multiple solution providers. This will leverage commonly available tools and be based on an accepted and appropriate object model.

The Evolution of the Desktop

TriTeal Corporation

The desktop interface for today's enterprise is based on technology that is inher ently tied to the underlying operating system and thus to specific hardware platforms. What MIS and support organizations have asked for is a platform neu tral, distributed desktop that provides access to remote applications and data regardless of the user's location and hardware device. John Werner of TriTeal pointed out that it is important also to provide a transition path from today's desktop solutions to this network-centric environment that requires minimal train ing while maximizing existing hardware and software resources and at the same time allows the purchase of Network Computers and other Internet appliances that are becoming available that help reduce the total cost of ownership.

SCO

The IT industry innovates faster than business is willing or able to exploit its in novation. The result is a diverse mix of technology and architectures created by the pace of change. Chris Scheybeler discussed how this "legacy" technology is frequently the result of strategic investment that is fundamental to the business, yet architecturally difficult to integrate with new technologies designed for a more homogeneous world.

It is left to vertical integrators and niche developers to provide solutions that in tegrate these diverse architectures. Yet the economics of these niche markets leads to specific solutions for specific problems which themselves compound the diversity they aim to bridge. Chris explained that the current IT landscape lacks an overall bridging architecture that can accommodate the rich diversity of clients, servers, applications and data that businesses use today and will con tinue to need in the future. He explained how SCO is contributing to the solution of this problem.

"The March Member Meeting was a valuable exercise for those of us from Kaiser Permanente. The plenaries sparked ongoing discussions concerning the state of our enterprises and the appropriate technologies to apply. The agreements to work more closely between the DCE and Security Program groups is a positive step in our estimation. Being able to deliver working technology (DCE) and incorporate state-of-the-art security approaches (APKI, XSSO) will be essential to both the health of the DCE effort and our enterprise."

Ronald Becker Williams
IT Strategic Planning Specialist
Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Southern California Region

The Program Groups

The Program Groups are the heart of the open systems process. The groups de velop requirements within the context of program plans that they create and main tain. They see requirements through from conception to implementation, whether this is done with The Open Group or not.

All of The Open Group's Program Groups held sessions during this meet ing. They are:

Architecture

Members of this group access shared experience using a common industry framework (model and methodology) for architecture development while enjoying the opportunity to shape the development of that framework. The group has begun to follow the approved 1997 Architecture Program Plan with the objective of implementing a single, unifying Architectural Framework for the IT industry as a whole.

Interoperability

Interoperability is arguably the real test of collaboration between suppliers now that the work with the Microsoft desktop has been given clear priorities by the custom

ers. In Seattle, attention turned to database integration, calendaring and sched uling and the need to establish closer relationships with the other Program Groups.

Security

The practical problems of security management within enterprises drive this group's customer-driven infrastructure. Key focus areas this year are Single Sign -On and public key infrastructure. During the meeting, the group endorsed a multi -vendor interface for integrating Single Sign-On solutions and made progress to ward the adoption of a specification of interfaces for certificate management and cryptographic services.

Distributed Systems Management

At a time when Application Management is a critical issue for members, this group is focusing on the need for standards-based systems application management products as a major factor in driving down the overall cost of IT ownership. In Seattle, The Boeing Company led the way with a white paper, and presentations were developed by a number of key suppliers in this topic area.

Desktop

Bringing the power of distributed systems to the end-user's desk while masking the complexity of such environments is the charter of the Desktop Program Group. In Seattle, the group's goal was to improve its members' understanding of emerging technologies and of the vendor desktop vision.

Information Superhighway

As enterprises search for ways to leverage the inherent advantages of the Internet and Internet technologies, this group is working in six critical areas that range from security issues around ActiveX and Java' to political and legal barriers to wide-scale Internet usage.

Distributed Computing Environment (DCE)

Today countless end-users worldwide confidently rely on DCE to help them make the most of their computing investments. As technology evolves, the DCE Program Group works to keep pace with the changes by identifying and stimulat ing supplier and customer partnerships to produce new implementations of high -priority DCE features. In Seattle, the Program Group worked on prioritizing in dustry requirements for future projects, agreed to a joint working group and ana lyzed new technology projects.

Program Groups Provide Focus and Development Work

The Open Group currently sponsors seven Program Groups. The purpose of a Program Group is to:

A more detailed description of each group's work during the March meeting in Seattle is included in subsequent pages. Members of The Open Group can view all of the Program Group Plans in their entirety on the "Members Only" section of The Open Group Web site: www.opengroup.org

Note to members: If you are having trouble accessing the "Members Only" side, if you've lost your password, or need one for a colleague, please email to: webmaster@opengroup.org to request new or replacement passwords. Please mention your company name and membership type.

The following organizations attended The Open Group's March Member Meeting:

Note: a full list of member companies can be view online at http://www.rdg.opengroup.org/public/member/og-members.htm.

Architecture Program Group: Developing a Unifying Architectural Framework

The overriding goal of the Architecture Program Group is to meet the defined re quirements of The Open Group user community in the field of IT architectures. Members of this group expect access to shared experience using a common in dustry framework (model and methodology) for architecture development while enjoying the opportunity to shape the development of that framework.

The group has begun to follow the approved 1997 Architecture Program Plan with an objective of putting into place a single, unifying Architectural Framework for the IT industry as a whole.

Executive Committee: For the Day-to-Day Decision-Making

At the Architecture Program Group meeting in Rome, the group voted to cre ate an Executive Committee to handle the day-to-day decision-making required of the Program Group membership. The committee reports back to the Program Group membership through the Architecture Program Group Web pages and at the quarterly meetings.

During their first meeting in February 1997, the Executive Committee re viewed the Architecture Program Group Plan, and discussed and recom mended action on a coordination proposal from SPIRIT (an initiative formed by several telcos to specify a standard processing environment). They also planned the Seattle meeting structure

to allow three task groups to effectively utilize the time allocated.

Also during the meeting, Hal Wilson of Litton/PRC was elected Chair of the Ar chitecture Executive Committee. The next meeting of the Executive Committee is April 23, 1997, in Palo Alto, CA, in conjunction with the scheduled meeting of the Architecture Building Block Task Group.

Contact:

Building Block Task Group

Building Blocks are essentially the units of functionality that are purchased (often from multiple vendors) and integrated to produce an IS solution. The Building Blocks Task Group, which ultimately aims to bring TOGAF closer to the imple mentation of specific architectural solutions, met for the first time Feb. 20, 1997, in Reading, where it agreed that by year-end it would deliver:

During the Seattle meeting, Mike Lambert, The Open Group's Chief Technical Officer, presented "IT DialTone - An Architecture for the Information Age." In this vision, information appliances are as ubiquitous as the telephone, and ex changing information is as easy as using the phone. Mr. Lambert explained that the objective of this venture is to (1) define the architecture for the IT DialTone, which brings the characteristics of telephone service to the information age and (2) facilitate the delivery of the IT DialTone.

To achieve this vision, the Building Block Task Group plans to start with The Open Group Architectural framework (TOGAF), concentrating on how it fits with the IT DialTone theory.

The group made solid progress in agreeing to a detailed definition and character ization of "Building Blocks" while recognizing a primary distinction between Ar chitectural Building Blocks (ABBs) and Solution Building Blocks (SBBs).

Contact:

In addition, the following Task Groups have also recently been formed:

Standards Information Base (SIB) Task Group

The SIB Task Group will be responsible for integrating the tool set into the Archi tecture and SIB environment.

Contact:

Requirements Task Group

The Requirements Task Group owns Appendix D (The Architecture Requirements Description) of the TOGAF. The group's responsibility is threefold: collect, consolidate, and prioritize requirements; re port to the Executive Committee for approval of the prioritized requirements; and then incorporate the approved requirements into Appendix D.

Contact:

"I primarily attended the Architecture Program Group sessions at The Open Group Member Meeting in Seattle. I found the Build ing Blocks and Standards Information Base Task Groups to be of particular interest as they allow for the sharing of information and experience that is of direct relevance to my current activities within the NATO C3 Agency. The plenary session with presenta tions on 'Solutions for Integrating the Enterprise' were even better than plenary sessions at previous meetings. Presentations were high quality with good practical advisory guidance, such as the 'Findings' section in the presentation from John Rymer of Giga Information Group."


Wouter Konings, NATO C3 Agency Belgium

Interoperability Program Group: Meeting Our Most Fundamental Goal

Providing interoperability is one of the basic objectives of The Open Group. All Program Groups undertake some work to facilitate cooperation between informa tion systems. However, interoperability is recognized as being sufficiently important to deserve special attention. Mem bers have consistently stated that interoperability remains an important is sue. With this in mind, the Interoperability Program Group began its discussions in Seattle by rethinking the group's charter and plotting its direction for the re mainder of the year.

The Program Group's key achievements at the Seattle meeting were:

To address the changing requirements of the Program Group the following new proposals were considered:

Specific areas where the Interoperability Program Group believes it can be effec tive in focusing the attention of other Program Groups are:

Contact:

Security Program Group: Safety at Three Levels

The Security Program Group aims to establish standards and technology that en able organizations to conduct business securely. This includes, but is not limited to, the ability to make use of environments like the Internet for electronic commerce. The group also acts as a forum for trends and security issues of con cern to business to be presented and discussed.

The group is concerned with the provision of security at three levels: A secure Internet backed by a secure corporate network supported by secure computing platforms. Key focus areas are Public Key Infrastructure and Single Sign-On.

During the Seattle meeting, a specification for Single Sign-On was approved for publication as a preliminary specification. This standard will enable a user to log-on to the enterprise once, instead of requiring an individual log-on to each indi vidual system for which access is required.

This new specification will significantly improve the usability of complex systems that currently burden users with the need to sign on to multiple systems. IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, and Transarc were among the vendors who supported the specification.

A certificate is a mechanism by which an individual is securely represented on the Internet and, where appropriate, within corporate IT environments. It provides proof to the receiver of the information that the sender is who he says he is, which he cannot repudiate. In order for a certificate to provide this mechanism, underlying cryptographic support must be included. Every certificate contains a cryptographic key that is unique to its holder.

All certificates go through a life cycle in which they are created, distributed, used, retired and eventually destroyed. Some certificates may also have to be revoked for the same reasons that credit cards are revoked. The life cycle of a certificate needs management through its creation, distribution, usage, archival period (when certificates are retired and can be made available, if necessary) and destruction.

The Open group's specification will allow interworking between applications and infrastructure from the different vendors that use and manage certificates. For organizations that do not have the resources, skills, or desire to manage their certificates, trusted third party organizations will provide management services.

As a part of the PKI program, the Security Program Group also unanimously rec ommended that The Open Group adopt the Intel Common Data Security Archi tecture (CDSA) as the basis of a specification of interfaces for certificate manage ment and cryptographic services. This view was also supported by Taher Elgamal, the security architect of Netscape, who participated as an invited expert in the discussion of alternatives during the Program Group meeting. This recommendation followed a call for inputs and review of alternate proposals from a number of different sources based on an openly agreed set of criteria.

As a follow-on activity, Intel, Nortel Entrust, Trusted Information Systems, and IBM will work together to make a submission based on CDSA V1.2 into The Open Group consensus process.

Security & DCE Program Groups collaborate

In Seattle, the DCE and Security Program Groups met jointly for one session. Their focus was on a review of issues and challenges associated with integration of DCE and Public Key Infrastructure. As a follow-on, they agreed to cooperate. To achieve this, the two groups agreed to appoint a Security & DCE Task Group that would liaise between the two teams.

The Security Program Group, which included delegates from such companies as Shell International, NCR, Barclays Bank, NIST, NSA, and UK Ministry of Defence, also enjoyed a wide range of informational presentations on the latest devel opments in the industry. These included the influential OECD cryptographic guidelines, the recent Internet Architecture Board review of TCP/IP security, the International Cryptography Experiment, Shell International's policy for network security, the Key Recovery Alliance, and vendor presentations on key recovery (Trusted Information Systems, Nortel Entrust, and IBM).

The group also agreed to a set of focus areas for the June meeting in London. These include:

They will also hold a joint session with the International Cryptography Experi ment Group on implementing the OECD Guidelines on Cryptography.

Some of the key deliverables planned for this year are:

Contact:

"Since JP Morgan is a global financial institution, security is a critical issue. By actively supporting standardized products and services, we are in the enviable position of being able to in fluence the vendors toward developing better solutions. As Chair of the Security Program Group, I felt that this recent Member Meeting of The Open Group was extremely productive toward this objective. The group made impressive progress in the development of Certificate Management and Single Sign-On standards, as well as in key recovery initiatives. It's clear to me that the group is 100% committed to maintaining a steady pace toward keeping up with the rapidly-changing security and elec tronic commerce marketplace."

Charles Blauner, Vice President
Security and Internet Architecture
JP Morgan

Distributed Systems Management (DSM) ProgramGroup: Fostering Strategic Market Growth

The goal of the Distributed Systems Management (DSM) Program Group is to foster the growth of a market in branded systems management products that meets the needs of the user and ISV communities.

To achieve this, participating companies such as Boeing, CIT's Jet Propulsion Lab, Amdahl, and Elf Aquitaine will develop high-quality, business-oriented, end-user requirements that allow the identification of high-priority problems. Based on those requirements, the group will identify and develop specifications that are needed to meet customer needs.

Applications Management Focus

In Seattle, during a joint meeting the DSM Program Group and the associated Specification Working Group (SysMan), the two established the major objectives, priorities, and actions for the new 1997 Applications Management focus.

Rob Thompson of the Boeing Company presented a white paper on Applications Management Domain of Systems Management. In addition, the following sup pliers delivered presentations about systems management: Microsoft, IBM/Tivoli, Hewlett-Packard, Sterling, Groupe Bull, and Compuware.

During 1997, both the DSM and SysMan will be involved in the creation of the first of a family of systems management-related product standards based on existing specifications and those currently under development with an interoperability focus.

The goal will be to build a framework of product standards that will help to solve some of the current limitations and problems in the area of service and applica tions management. The group expects that the existence of such standards -based systems management products will be a major factor in driving down the overall cost of IT ownership.

The DSM group's major accomplishments during the Seattle meeting were:

The following task groups were established during the week:

After discussing the challenges facing the program, a temporary task group was formed to develop recommendations for changes to the program and plans. This work group will return with recommendations within five weeks for discussions by both SysMan and the Program Group. It will be the responsibility of the respec tive groups to accept and implement the recommendations.

Contact:

Desktop Program Group: Building a Coherent Picture

The Desktop Program Group concentrates on building a coherent open sys tems picture of the end-user's desktop. Specifically, these include emerging technologies (e.g. Java and ActiveX) and paradigms (e.g. NCRP), user inter face, security, interoperability, and related standards.

By keeping a finger on the pulse of the desktop marketplace, the group will be able to track desktop technology trends, analyze the benefits and impact of these technologies, articulate customer requirements, and track the progress of those re quirements as desktop technologies evolve.

In Seattle, the group's objective was to improve its members' understanding of emerging technologies and of the vendor desktop vision. In addition, the Program Group identified four key focus areas:

  1. Java & ActiveX security - Joint work is planned with the Security Program Group to understand vendor positions (Microsoft, JavaSoft, and Netscape) and to subsequently develop coherent Java security policies and guidelines.
  2. User Interface - Evolution of Java Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT) and its future role with other user interface technologies (e.g. X, Motif ® and Microsoft Windows). The expected deliverable will be recommendations for evolution and standardization.
  3. Standardization - joint work is planned with the Information Super highway Program Group to follow recent efforts from Sun Microsystems to standardize Java and The Open Group's efforts to standardize the NCRP. The group will determine what is being standardized and whether us ers feel it is sufficient. The expected deliverable will be recommendations for standardization.
  4. Interoperability: what works with what? The Program Group will con tinue to explore the roles of Java and ActiveX: how they work together in the enterprise, when to use them and why.
  5. Exploration of customer and vendor perspectives and strategies - this is an effort to engage users and suppliers to develop a common vision of the desk top and customer requirements.

The expected benefits of these activities will be to enhance The Open Group's understanding of the desktop landscape and to bring about customer require ments that will truly influence and shape the desktop marketplace.

During the week, the group heard a variety of presentations from both customer and vendor representative organizations such as Sun Microsystems Federal, Inc., Microsoft, Shell Information Services, and TriTeal.

Contact:

"As a consultant, I solve IT business problems, specifically in the area of distributed systems. It's important that I have a thorough understanding of the industry and where it's headed so that I can provide my customers with useful, forward-thinking solu tions. The Open Group's Member Meeting offered a wealth of good information, and with the diverse membership, a valuable ex change of ideas and issues. 'Solutions for Integrating the Enter prise' was a timely theme because it addressed what's hap pening in the industry now."

Sandra Gollofon, CISSP
Consultant, Open Systems Technology
IBM Global Services

Information Superhighway Program Group: Clearing the Obstacles to the Internet

The Information Superhighway Program Group helps meet the rapidly changing needs of the user community by guiding the selection of the technology and infra structure for the Information Superhighway. To accomplish this, the Program Group has recognized the need to anticipate market requirements and provide solutions that can be rapidly adopted by suppliers and users.

There are still many obstacles, such as security in electronic commerce, that prevent companies from moving their business applications to the Internet. The Information Superhighway Program Group, composed of customers and suppliers, is ideally positioned to identify the problem areas and provide valuable solutions.

During the well-attended Seattle sessions, the Program Group built upon its previous work of identifying a number of requirements that address the immediate needs of Internet users. Task Groups were established to provide detailed re ports and work plans, and to initiate work in six development areas:

The work in these areas will identify tasks that can, or cannot, currently be per formed on the Internet. The group will assist in the development of the require ments necessary to provide the missing elements of business functionality.

Contact:

"The Open Group has come a long way forward since the last member meeting in Barcelona. Now the foundations are sound, we can expect an Open Group construction to be built fit for its purpose as we move towards the new millennium. Seattle demon strated another step change in the evolution of The Open Group - A more definite business focus was very much in evidence, along with a sharp look at the contribution to the bottom line."

Nick Mansfield
Vice Chair, Security Program Group

DCE Program Group: Turning Requirements into Products

The goal of the DCE Program Group is to provide input and assistance to The Open Group and those companies sponsoring collaborative projects in the area of DCE. The DCE Program Group will solicit participation from, and provide input to, other relevant Program Groups within The Open Group.

The scope of the group's activities are to:

In Seattle, the Program Group accomplished the following:

In addition, RPC 95 defined the open systems community's key requirements for distributed computing. The Program Group began the process of turning re quirements into products by providing The Open Group with the top priorities, and they formed a task force to help translate the security-related require ments into source code deliverables.

A set of focus areas for the London meeting were identified, namely:

The priority work items within the group are:

DCE Security

A joint DCE/Security Task Group comprising members of the DCE Program Group and the Security Program Group. This group will help translate the top DCE security requirements into source code deliverables.

Object-Oriented

Documentation

Performance Management

Naming

Distributed File System (DFS)

Business

Key deliverables planned for 1997 are:

Contact:

Contact Information

Architecture Program Group

Interoperability Program Group

Security Program Group

Distributed Systems Management Group

Desktop Program Group

Information Superhighway Program Group

DCE Program Group

© The Open Group, 1997. All rights reserved.

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