ETSI MTS Meeting SDL Tool Compatibility

1. ETSI MTS MeetingSDL Tool Compatibility March, 1999 François Englebert - CS VERILOG englebert@verilog.fr

2. Agenda • Summary of the context • Pending issues & questions • Proposal to ETSI • ETSI proposal

3. Summary of actions • Many months troubleshooting the INAP model (from Jul-97 till now) • Feedback problems to the MTS support group (questions still pending) • Proposal of a process and action plan to tackle the issues (MTS meeting, Oct-97) • Proposal of a ‘working item’ (MTS meeting, Mar-98) concerning portability issues • VERILOG proposal not selected (Oct-98)

4. Remarks & Questions • “Several errors were acknowledged to be incorrect application of Z.105 or relaxation of language rules in SDT” • How can ETSI claim its models are tool independent? • How are ETSI SDL models maintained? • How and when ETSI electronic deliverables are considered as a definitive reference? • “The tools should offer a “Z.100/Z.105 mode” • VERILOG tool does, is such option used at ETSI?

5. Important Issues Three main categories of problems • Standard exchange format (CIF, PR) • Vendors have achieved a good interchange level • It now represents only a fraction of the portability issues • Supported Language Constructs • Each tool vendor has his own schedule to support newly introduced language constructs • Specific Vendor Extensions (e.g. libraries) • Must not be used in standard specifications

6. Other concerns • Using most recent additions to the standard raise additional issues • Industrial SDL users are not trained • Difficulty to obtain an up-to-date documentation: ITU standards, technical books, examples... • Additions made are not always mature • Tool support can be unstable • Push the user forward to use the latest tool release • Standard body shouldn’t not anticipate the industrial acceptance Proposal is to have a validation period of e.g. 1 year

7. VERILOG Proposal • Objectives • Build a Conformance Test Specification (CTS) based on reference standards Z.100 (SDL), Z.105 (SDL/ASN.1) and Z.120 (MSC) • Define a testing process for SDL tools based on the Conformance Test Specification • Define an action plan between SDL users and tool builders to solve the problems • Update and maintain the Conformance Test Specification in line with the new releases of SDL-2000 and ASN.1 by ITU-T • Elaborate a procedure for the production of high quality and portable SDL standards

8. STF Deliverable Steps • Identify the list of tests to be performed on SDL tools • Define a framework for testing SDL tools • Produce a first Conformance Test Specification in the form of a test database • Apply and validate the test procedure to working/existing ETSI specifications • Outline a formal procedure for the production of SDL standards

9. Consequences if portability not achieved • Adoption of SDL standards for industrial use is hampered • ETSI will not be able to formalize the complete SDL production path • Confidence in the ETSI specifications can be affected • Customers have to afford extra costs and delay or accept to be dependent on one tool implementation • New emerging notations for system design can challenge SDL compelling advantages

10. Conclusion • Portability issues must involve both standard bodies and tool suppliers • VERILOG made several proposals and is now asking for actions from ETSI • Possible concrete actions: • Build a list of non-usable SDL constructs • Re-align existing specifications • Take all necessary steps to ensure long term correction of the issues