Short Review of US IETF User Support Activities.

by Rolf Nordhagen


Introduction:

This is a short review of information gleaned through browsing in the
information available on the Internet Engineering and Technical Forum
(IETF) on User Support activities.

(Note: All relevant info is available as files on our NIC.NORDU.NET
FTP-server, directories /ietf and /internet-drafts. By anonymous FTP
start with "cd ietf", get 00Readme etc.)

User Support activities are carried out under the:

IETF Working Group: User Services Area
Chair: Joyce K. Reynolds, jkrey@isi.edu

Curren projects/groups are:

a: User Services (uswg): Oversight Group

b: User Glossary (usergloss, also written userglos): Creating an
   Internet glossary of networking terms for the Internet community.
   Aim to collect or edit together the large number of various sources
   of glossaries, and submit a draft by December 1991. Building on RFC
   1206 and 1208.

c: NOC-Tools Catalogue (revision, noctool2): Update and revise catalog
   of diagnostic and analytic tools for network managers. New version by
   December 1991. (Action: Locate and obtain current catalog.)

d: User Documents (userdoc): Has prepared a bibliography of on-line and
   hard-copy documents/reference materials/training tools addressing
   general networking information. Available under /internet-drafts
   as draft-ietf-userdoc-bibliography-00.txt. A very impressive
   collection of references. Of considerable usefulness, primarily for
   network managers and staff.

e: Network Information Services Infrastructure (nisi): To explore the
   requirements for common, shared Internet-wide network information
   services. Will write a short white paper to serve as a starting
   point for discussions on an Internet-wide information services
   infrastructure. Presently discussing a draft paper. Also considering
   a NIC forum. (Action: Locate draft, explore NIC forum).

f: User Connectivity (ucp): Define the issues that must be considered in
   establishing a reliable service to users of the Internet who are
   experiencing connectivity problems. Write a document, addressing
   these issues. Documents in their present state available as
   draft-ietf-ucp-connectivity.txt and draft-ietf-ucp-tt.txt

g: QUAIL: Questions and Answers (Q/A) for Internet users. Two RFCs are
   published: RFC 1206 and 1207. Highly useful information.

h: DISI: Directory Information Services Infrastructure (pilot, new 1991)
   Chartered to deploy the X.500 standards in the Directory Services of
   the Internet, and will produce informational RFCs intended to serve
   as a Directory Services "Administrator's Guide". Also to write a
   charter for a new working group concerned with user services,
   integration, and operations of Directory Services, the Internet
   Directory User Services Group (IDUS), by December 91.

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Comment: As can be seen, most groups are concerned with assisting the
network manager in providing user support, and the information available
should be very valuable for Nordic efforts with the same aim.

Groups more concerned with providing support info and tools aimed at the
non-expert end user, are seemingly nisi (e:) and the IDUS extension of 
DISI (h:).

Note that group activities are ongoing via mailing lists. List adresses
(with request adresses) are found in the relevant chapter files, e.g.
/ietf/uswg-chapter.txt . RFCs available under /rfc as number.Z