The Open Book

This book presents the full extent of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI): what OSI is, how OSI is implemented, and how OSI is integrated with existing networks.

The author is one of OSI's chief architects. For advanced computer networks courses or courses dealing specifically with OSI.

1. An Introduction to OSI
1. Introduction to Open Systems
1. The Players of Open Systems
1. Standard Organizations
2. Functional Profiles
3. Standard Profiles
4. Internet Standards
2. Roadmap
2. Models, Conventions, and Notation
1. Services
1. Service Primitives
2. Service Interfaces
2. Protocols
3. The 7 Layers
1. Services Revisited
2. End-to-End Services
3. Introduction to End-to-End Services
1. Network Services
1. Subnetworks
2. Intermediate-Systems
3. End-Systems
2. Network Services
3. Transport Services
1. Emulation of OSI End-to-End Services
2. Transport Bridging
3. Connectionless-mode Transport Service
4. Roadmap
4. Network Services
1. Concepts
1. Addressing
2. Binding
3. Quality of Service
2. Network Primitives
1. Connection-oriented Network Service
2. Connectionless-mode Network Service
3. Network Protocols
1. Internal Organization of the Network Layer
2. Providing the CONS
3. Providing the CLNS
4. A Soapbox on the IONL
5. Transport Services
1. Concepts
2. Transport Primitives
1. Connection Establishment Phase
2. Data Transfer Phase
3. Connection Release Phase
3. Transport Protocols
1. Simple Class
2. Basic Error Recovery Class
3. Multiplexing Class
4. Error Recovery and Multiplexing Class
5. Error Detection and Recovery Class
4. Emulation of OSI End-to-End Services
5. Application Use of End-to-End Services
1. Step 1: Map Distinguished Names
2. Step 2: Determine Use of Network Addresses
3. Step 3: Order Network Addresses
4. Step 4: Attempt Connections
6. Interworking Revisited
1. The Real World of OSI
2. Community Interworking
3. Interim use of Network Addresses
4. Transport Bridging
7. Comparision to Internet End-to-End Services
1. Network Service
2. Transport Service
8. A Final Soapbox on OSI End-to-End Services
3. Application Services
6. Introduction to Application Services
1. Transport Services
1. Connection Establishment
2. Data Transfer
3. Connection Release
2. Session Services
1. Token Management
2. Dialogue Control
3. Activity Management
4. Exception Reporting
3. Abstract Syntax
1. Abstract Syntax Notation
2. Transfer Syntax Notation
4. Presentation Services
1. Context Management
2. Syntax Matching
3. Lightweight Presentation Services
5. Application Service Elements
1. Association Control
2. Naming and Addressing
3. Reliable Transfer
4. Remote Operations
6. OSI Applications
1. The Directory
2. Message Handling Systems
3. File Transfer, Access and Management
7. Roadmap
7. Session Services
1. Concepts
1. Session Addresses
2. Connection Identifier
3. Functional Units
4. Tokens
5. Serial Numbers
6. User-Data
7. Quality of Service
2. Session Primitives
1. Connection Establishment Phase
2. Data Transfer Phase: Data Transfer
3. Data Transfer Phase: Token Management
4. Data Transfer Phase: DIalogue Control
5. Data Transfer Phase: Activity Management
6. Data Transfer Phase: Exception Reporting
7. Connection Release Phase
8. The Session Service is Controversial
3. Session Protocol
1. Use of the Transport Service
2. Element of Procedure
3. Encodings
4. A Soapbox on the Session Protocol
4. An Implementation
1. Session Interface
2. Session Entity
8. Abstract Syntax
1. Concepts
2. Abstract Syntax Notation
1. Lexical Conventions
2. Modules
3. Types
4. Values
5. Macros
6. An Example
3. Transfer Syntax Notation
1. Top-Level
2. Tag Field
3. Length Field
4. Value Field
5. The Controversy of TLV encodings
6. An Example
4. An Implementation
1. Presentation Elements
2. Presentation Streams
3. An ASN.1 Structure Generator
4. An ASN.1 Parser
9. Presentation Services
1. Concepts
1. Presentation Addresses
2. Context Management
3. Functional Units
4. User Data
5. Session Concepts
2. Presentation Primitives
1. Connection Establishment Phase
2. Data Transfer Phase
3. Connection Release Phase
3. Presentation Protocol
1. Use of the Session Service
2. Elements of Procedure
3. Encodings
4. Lightweight Presentation Protocol
1. A Historical Perspective
2. An Architecture
3. An Approach
4. Low-Quality End-to-End Connections
5. The Architecture Revisited
5. An Implementation
1. Presentation Interface
2. Presentation Entity
10. Application Service Elements
1. Association Control
1. ACSE Primitives
2. ACSE Protocol
3. An Example
2. Naming and Addressing
1. Naming
2. Addressing
3. The Higher-Performance Nameservice
4. Naming Revisited
3. Reliable Transfer
1. RTSE Primitives
2. RTSE Protocol
3. An Implementation
4. Remote Operations
1. A Model for Distributed Applications
2. The Role of ROSE
3. ROSE Primitives
4. ROSE Protocol
5. An Implementation
11. OSI Applications
1. Directory Services
1. Models of the Directory
2. The Directory Service
3. Use of Directory Services
4. Directory Use of Application Services
5. Directory Standards
2. Message Handling Systems
1. Models of Message Handling Systems
2. The Message Handling Service
3. Use of the Message Handling Systems
4. Message Handling Use of Application Services
5. Message Handling Standards
3. File Transfer, Access and Management
1. The Virtual Filestore
2. The File Service
3. Use of the File Service
4. FTAM Use of Application Services
5. FTAM Standards
6. A Soapbox on FTAM
4. Transition to OSI
12. Introduction to Transition
1. Concepts
1. Mappings
2. Terminology
2. History
1. The Internet Suite of Protocols
2. The OSI Suite of Protocols
3. Comparisons
3. Metrics for Comparison
4. Roadmap
13. Protocol-based Approaches
1. Dual-Stack Approach
1. Communication with Uni-stack Nodes
2. Other Considerations
3. An Implementation
4. Scorecard
2. Application-Gateway Approach
1. Imperfect Mappings
2. An Implementation
3. A Soapbox on Application-Gateways
4. Scorecard
3. Transport-Gateway Approach
1. An Implementation
2. What's Wrong Here
4. Summary
14. Service-based Approaches
1. Transport-service Bridges
1. An Implementation
2. Scorecard
2. Network-service Tunnels
1. Advantages of Level-3 Relays
2. An Implementation
3. Scorecard
3. Summary and Comparisons
15. Scenarios for Transition
1. Example: U.S. DoD Strategy
1. OSI-POSIX Project
2. Application-Gateways
2. Generic Example
3. Conclusions
5. The Final Soapbox
16. The Politics of Open Systems
1. Problems with the Standards Process
1. Standards Organizations
2. Functional Profiles
2. The Myth of Formalism
1. Conformance Testing
2. The Lessons of Interoperability Testing
3. The Internet Community
1. An Amusing Anecdote
2. Internet versus OSI
3. The Network Management Shibboleth
4. Where to Now?

Still one of the best books on OSI ever written. And if you want to learn ASN.1, go no further.