Directory-Enabled Dynamic Addressing Standards Development Advanced

Business Wire, March 3, 1999

FRAMINGHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 3, 1999--

New Attendees Sun, Lucent and CheckPoint join Cisco, IBM,

Microsoft, Nortel and Process Software in continued development of

directory-enabled standard for dynamic addressing and ensure

compatibility with CIM

Process Software Corporation, a leading provider of directory-centric IP Resource Management solutions, reinforced its commitment to standards development by hosting another forum to continue efforts in developing an industry standard schema within the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) for directory-enabling the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. The forum, held last week at Process Software's headquarters in Framingham, MA, was attended by three new members, Sun Microsystems, Lucent, and CheckPoint Software. Other industry leading participants included Cisco Systems, IBM, Microsoft and Nortel Networks.

One of the forum's new initiatives was to confirm that the efforts being made in the schema development, to be presented to the IETF's DHCP Working Group for review and publication this spring, aligns with the efforts of the DMTF (Desktop Management Task Force) Common Information Model (CIM). CIM provides an object oriented, standard description of the managed environment that is vendor, platform and device independent. The goal of the DHC Working Group is to provide a common schema and its Directory representation to describe dynamic IP addressing. This work aligns with the CIM Schema definitions in this area, facilitating DHCP interoperability.

"This meeting is typical of the work in which the DMTF is involved. Our ongoing goal is the unification of management standards. The outcome from the exchange of ideas aligns and enhances both the IETF's DHCP and CIM schemas," said Andrea Westerinen, team lead for DHCP modeling in the DMTF's Networks Working Group and Program Manger, Windows Management Instrumentation at Microsoft Corp. "All participants shared the same goal - to help improve and simplify management of corporate enterprise networks with increased interoperability."

Process Software has been collaborating with industry leaders to develop a proposed standard schema - vendor independent - that makes it possible to store DHCP server configuration information in Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directories. The first forum, held in November 1998, was the first step in bringing together industry leading vendors to develop a schema that would allow organizations to maintain a common data repository that is independent of the DHCP server implementation.

Microsoft and Novell have each independently submitted Internet Drafts on their proposed DHCP schema. Process Software has also published a schema, and others continue to develop similar schema efforts.

"Participation by DMTF members contributed toward significant momentum in moving this standards effort forward. The progress made by the combined efforts of the IETF and DMTF members will result in widespread vendor-independent use of dynamic IP address information," said Steve Chirokas, Director of Product Marketing, Process Software Corporation.

IP has emerged as the network protocol of choice for local and remote communications. As a result, IP networks are becoming more and more complex and the management and administration of IP addresses has become a great challenge for network administrators. DHCP greatly simplifies client network configuration by allowing clients to share a pool of addresses through a lease process and automatically configuring the TCP/IP networking parameters for the clients, reducing the chance of human error and the need for communicating address and network information.

About Process Software

Process Software Corporation provides TCP/IP and IP resource management software solutions for enterprise networks. The company's products include TCPware(R) and MultiNet(R), two industry-leading TCP/IP software packages for Digital VAX and Alpha systems, and its new directory-centric IPworks(R) suite of cross platform IP resource management solutions. With the IPworks suite, Process Software is poised to take a leadership position in delivering products to address the next generation, directory centric IP networks. For more information about Process Software products and services, contact Process Software headquarters in Framingham, MA at (508) 879-6994, or www.process.com.