Abstract

Olicom commissioned Tolly to certify its product for the IBM LAN Network Manager specification. 

This Tolly Group certification report documents the successful IBM LAN Network Manager bridge certification of the Olicom PC-based Remote Bridge OC-3853 version 4.09. Published in September 1994, the report verifies interoperability with IBM LAN Network Manager (LNM) version 1.1 and confirms that the bridge met IBM’s requirements for management compatibility in token-ring networking environments. Olicom USA commissioned The Tolly Group to conduct the certification, and the product passed testing and received official LNM certification on June 24, 1994. 

The evaluation was designed to confirm that the remote bridge could be discovered, controlled, monitored, and managed correctly through IBM’s LNM framework. The bridge test matrix on pages 2 and 3 covers a wide range of operational and management functions. These include linking and unlinking the bridge from LNM, displaying bridge and segment representations, adapter profile reporting, modifying bridge numbers, changing frame-forwarding states, setting single-route broadcast modes, updating LAN segment numbers, changing hop-count limits, modifying passwords, issuing test-segment commands, and adjusting performance notification intervals and frame-loss thresholds. The tests also verified adapter removal handling, incorrect-password rejection, and support for a second controlling LNM reporting link. 

The methodology further validated fault and event reporting, including soft-error reporting, hard-error beaconing alerts, LAN Reporting Mechanism termination, station-insert notification, and receiver-congestion reporting. According to the methodology on page 3, the bridge under test was connected to two 16Mbit/s token rings through a 56Kbit/s WAN link. Two LNM stations executed management commands and verified frame-, vector-, and subvector-level behavior against IBM-defined results. The lab used LNM version 1.1 PTF UR40085, IBM 8228 multi-access units, IBM adapter hardware, and a Network General Expert Sniffer to capture traffic. The page 4 diagram illustrates the full remote-bridge test bed. 

Overall, the report shows that the Olicom OC-3853 delivered the interoperability, management visibility, and reporting behavior required for deployment in IBM-managed token-ring remote-bridging environments.