Abstract

This Tolly Group certification report documents the successful IBM LAN Network Manager bridge certification of the Olicom Wire Speed Local Bridge OC-3401 version 2.03. Published in September 1994, the report verifies that the bridge interoperated with IBM LAN Network Manager (LNM) version 1.1 and met IBM’s requirements for management compatibility in token-ring networking environments. Olicom USA commissioned The Tolly Group to certify the product, and the OC-3401 passed testing and received official LNM certification on June 24, 1994. 

The evaluation was designed to validate both interoperability and detailed management behavior within IBM’s bridge-management framework. As shown in the bridge test matrix on pages 2 and 3, testing covered core management operations such as linking and unlinking the bridge from LAN Network Manager, displaying bridge and segment representations, viewing adapter profiles, changing the bridge number, modifying frame-forwarding state, setting single-route broadcast modes, changing LAN segment numbers, adjusting hop-count limits, updating passwords, issuing test-segment commands, and modifying performance-notification intervals and percent-frames-lost thresholds. The test suite also verified adapter removal reporting, rejection of incorrect passwords, and proper handling when a second controlling LNM reporting link attempted access. 

The report also details validation of fault and event reporting functions. These included soft-error reporting, hard-error beaconing alerts, LAN Reporting Mechanism termination, station-insert reporting, receiver-congestion reporting, and multiple soft-error logging modes including log all, log limited, and none with counter reset. According to the methodology on page 3, the bridge under test was connected between two 16Mbit/s token-ring segments identified as segment A and segment B. Two LNM stations, both running LAN Network Manager version 1.1 PTF UR40085, issued commands and verified frame-, vector-, and subvector-level behavior. A Network General Expert Sniffer captured traffic on both segments, and the test bed also used IBM 8228 shielded twisted pair multi-access units and IBM token-ring adapter hardware. The page 4 diagram illustrates this local-bridge test environment. 

Overall, the report shows that the Olicom OC-3401 delivered the management visibility, protocol interoperability, and event-reporting behavior required for deployment in IBM-managed token-ring local-bridging environments.