Overview
ISO/IEC 11587:1996 - Information technology: Open Systems Interconnection - Application Context for Systems Management with Transaction Processing defines an OSI application context that combines systems management (CMIS/CMISE) with transaction processing (TP) capabilities. It specifies how management operations can be grouped and coordinated so that consistency constraints are met, and how commitment, rollback and recovery are provided so sets of management requests are executed atomically (all succeed or none do).
The standard is published jointly with ITU‑T (identical to ITU‑T Rec. X.702) and supplies the application context name (OID) and the component Application Service Elements (ASEs) required to support management with TP.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Atomic management operations: supports grouping CMIS requests with provisions for commit, rollback, and recovery so that either all grouped requests complete or none do.
- Component ASEs / ASOs: defines the required service elements and versions:
- ACSE (Association Control Service Element) - association control
- ROSE (Remote Operations Service Element) - remote operation support (used via CMISE)
- CMISE (Common Management Information Service Element) - CMIS kernel (version 2)
- SMASE (Systems Management Application Service Element) - SMAE service
- TPASE (Transaction Processing Application Service Element) - OSI TP integration
- CCR (Commitment, Concurrency and Recovery) - used when TP functional units require it
- Control function rules: describes how SMASE, CMISE, ROSE and TPASE interact, the Single/Multiple Association Control Function (SACF/MACF) behavior and the need for a common abstract syntax (CMIP).
- Persistent context & presentation rules: references OSI TP rules for information with lifetime beyond an association and notes which presentation services are shared vs. TP/CCR/ACSE‑specific.
- Error handling: attempts to use unsupported interactions produce CMIS error reporting (e.g., “unrecognized operation”).
Applications and who should use it
- Implementers of network and systems management products that require transactional integrity for management operations.
- Vendors building distributed transaction processing integrations with management systems.
- Architects and integrators designing coordinated configuration changes, automated provisioning, and rollback-capable management workflows across distributed OSI-based environments.
- Standards bodies and test labs validating conformance of management/TP stacks.
Related standards
Relevant companion references (also cited in the document) include:
- ISO/IEC 10026 (OSI TP parts), ISO/IEC 9595/9596 (CMIS), ISO/IEC 9804/9805 (CCR), ISO/IEC 9545 (Application Layer structure), ASN.1 & BER (ISO/IEC 8824/8825), and ISO/IEC 10040 (Systems Management Overview).
For implementers, ISO/IEC 11587 provides the application context, OID, component ASE set and rules necessary to combine systems management with reliable transaction processing in OSI environments.