012.30 German Networking, Research and Information Centre (GeNeRIC)
by Manfred Bogen

In Germany, initiatives to build up a communication
infrastructure for the scientific community following the
principles of "open systems interconnection" are funded by the
German ministry for research and technology and are pursued by
the DFN association.  GMD (Gesellschaft fuer Mathematik und
Datenverarbeitung) is the main contractor of the DFN association
and is providing the German Networking, Research and Information
Center (GeNeRIC) for electronic mail, file transfer, remote
login, packet switching, and information services for the members
of this association in a multi-protocol environment (OSI, EARN,
IP).  Parts of the network management and coordination in Germany
are done by GMD, too.

The centre of the scientific communication in Germany is the DFN
Message Handling Environment following CCITT's recommendations
(X.400-84) and (X.400-88) for electronic mail with about 200
MTAs.  The X.400 central node, called "DFNRELAY," is operated at
GMD's site in St.  Augustin, close to Bonn.  It is part of the
European X.400 backbone managed and coordinated by RARE (Reseaux
Associes pour la Recherche Europeenne) and in this context it is
a "well-known entry point" (WEP) for X.400 mail in Germany.

DFNRELAY is the place where institutions join the DFN Message
Handling Environment.  First interoperability tests between those
new systems and the DFNRELAY system are made here.  If these
tests are successful, the name for the new installation and the
associated address space is fixed following special naming
conventions within the DFN MHS context, and the new X.400
installation is announced to the other X.400 installations in
Germany.

Staff for DFNRELAY operation consult with their clients in the
establishment of direct X.400 connections to their communication
partners and in topics concerning routing or the monthly
installation of RFC address mapping tables.

The German X.400 WEP is presently connected via a 64 kbps port to
the private X.25 network "WiN."  The EAN system is also able to
use X.400 protocols on top of the TCP/ IP protocol suite.  This
is appropriate because GMD is also doing the management of DFN's
link (256 kbps) to the US Internet at the same site where the
X.400 central node is located.  As X.400 starts to be used in the
United States on top of TCP/IP due to the NSFNET project at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, GMD can play its role as entry
point for transatlantic X.400 traffic to Germany.

Associated with the X.400 WEP "DFNRELAY" are a number of other
mail servers which are operated at GMD:

IXGATE: the central German X.400-SMTP gateway (X.400-internet),

DFNGATE: the central German X.400-BSMTP gateway (X.400-EARN/
BITNET),

DEARN: the central German EARN node, and

Interbit: a SMTP-BSMTP gateway (internet-EARN/ BITNET).

For institutions which left EARN in Germany, GMD is providing a
mail forwarding service.  In general users do not know to which
distribution lists or files they had subscribed worldwide.
Therefore it is not possible, without loosing messages and files
to signoff from a network such as EARN quickly.  Messages for
recipients with "old" EARN addresses arrive at GMD's DFNGATE, are
processed (address mapping, protocol conversion) and are
forwarded to the X.400 network.

Ever since mail services began, they have been misused for file
transfer by people putting large, unstructured data into the mail
bodies.  Some systems crashed due to their length restrictions;
in X.400 this restriction is 2 Mbytes.  As file transfer services
provided on the base of File Transfer Access and Management
(FTAM) and the Internet File Transfer Protocol (FTP) become
available, a new gateway between FTAM and FTP is offered by GMD
to connect the Internet and OSI worlds.  At present FTAM-FTP
software on top of ISODE is used and had to be adapted to GMD's
communication infrastructure.

In anticipation of a worldwide X.500 Directory Service, the
information about all X.400 installations in Germany is collected
and maintained at DFNRELAY in a central file called
"Infobloecke".  This information is distributed once a month via
a special file server having mail access.  Distribution lists for
the German X.400 postmasters based on EAN's capabilities are
produced automatically once a month out of this data to keep
people informed about what is going on in the network.  The
application management in EARN, BITNET, and NetNorth is based on
a central file too.  Verification tools to check the consistency
and correctness of the data are available.

DFN's IP link is managed in the so-called "DFN Network Operation
Center (DFNNOC)" as part of the GeNeRIC service provision.  GMD's
services for DFN customers are completed by the operation of a
X.29-Telnet-Gateway (DFNCPT) enabling users in the Internet and
OSI worlds to connect interactively to hosts in foreign countries
as well.