austin.ibm.com

[David J. Cheney]

IBM's Advanced Workstation Division (home of the RISC System/6000 and AIX) 
has a full service connection to the Internet.

In August the Austin site 129.35 network was linked to the Internet via 
an intelligent router.  The router is programmed to support "Internet 
Approved Nodes" - IBM computer systems specifically approved for the 
Internet Service.  The router passes communications only between an
Approved Node and the Internet.  Furthermore, the traffic is limited by
direction: ONLY mail, talk, and ping are supported INBOUND.

There are currently 8 approved nodes, with the number expected to increase 
to over 40 by year end.  Of course, one Approved Node can support multiple 
users; there are about 60 current users.

With their manager's approval, a user may have their own workstation
approved, gaining fully transparent access to the Internet.  Alternatively,
the manager may choose to provide the service to a user at a remote
approved node rather than accept the management overhead of a new node.

An important point needs to be made about mail: many people currently have
	<name>@<machine>.austin.ibm.com
in their ~/.signature files.  If <machine>.austin.ibm.com is not pingable,
you CANNOT successfully deliver mail to <name> at or via that machine, 

The best way to find out mail paths to a specific user (AWD has for some 
time had the uucp mail path:
  @cs.utexas.edu:ibmchs!auschs!<machine>.austin.ibm.com!<user>
) is to call the person and ask.  We are evaluating alternative approaches 
to solving this problem.   IBM Austin employees without approved nodes have
been asked to correct their signature files.

Our hope is that this connection may provide a model for future connections
between other IBM organizations and the Internet.

To learn more about AWD's Internet Service, see recent posts in ibm.awd.news.

-- 
----------- You know these words are my own, don't you? -------------  
                                                                      
David J. Cheney   (512)823-3799    IBM Advanced Workstation Division, Zip 2401
dcheney at dcheney.austin.ibm.com            11400 Burnet Road, Austin, TX  78758