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InterWorking Labs, Inc.
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For Immediate Release

InterWorking Labs Releases New, Extended SNMP Test

Suite with Windows NT and Windows 95 Support

New SNMP Conformance Tests Include SNMPv2c Verification, Tcl/Tk Scripting for Customized SNMP Testing, Extended Private MIB Tests, and More

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (July 15, 1996) -- InterWorking Labs announced today the release of its new SNMP Test Suite, Revision 4.0, an expanded suite of tests to verify compliance with SNMPv2c, the recently revised Simple Network Management Protocol community standard. Included in SNMP Test Suite, Revision 4.0, are 90 new SNMPv2c compliance tests and 70 new tests for MIB II compliance, as well as a battery of improved tests to check SNMP compliance for proprietary MIBs. In addition, the test suite now supports both Windows 95 and Windows NT. Demonstration versions of the Windows 95 test suite are available on the World Wide Web at www.iwl.com

The SNMP Test Suite, Revision 4.0, was specifically created for use by design engineers, developers, quality assurance engineers, and system and network testers to isolate SNMP-related bugs in their networking products. The tests are designed to verify compliance with the SNMP protocols as defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), including tests for error and exception handling, boundary conditions, and performance under heavy network traffic. All the tests are verified by the InterWorking Labs Advisory Board, which is made up of SNMP experts from the IETF.

"Network management standards have been evolving rapidly in recent months, and new computing platforms have been proliferating in the marketplace, so we have redesigned our SNMP conformance tests to give our customers a greater range of tests and more flexibility," said Chris Wellens, CEO of InterWorking Labs. "We have added support for Windows NT and Windows 95 to make it easier to create testing platforms. We have also added a battery of tests to check compliance with the new SNMPv2c community standard, as well as new tests for MIB II conformance. And we have completely redesigned the SNMP Test Suite using Tcl scripting, so our customers can modify the tests to automatically repeat, present information in different ways, or customize the tests any way they need to. Our commitment is to offer our customers SNMP testing tools that are versatile and extensible, so they, in turn, can guarantee that their network products are fully compliant with the SNMP standard."

New Features in SNMP Test Suite 4.0

InterWorking Labs has added a wide range of new features to the SNMP Test Suite to help customers test for the latest network management technologies. These features include:

• Seventy new MIB II tests
• Ninety-six new SNMPv2 tests
• New "hot keys"
• Intelligent test sequencing
• Test Suite "remembers" completed tests and picks up where it left off.
• New support for private MIBs
• More flexibility and control in selecting MIBs to install, including private MIBs
• New Developer's Guide to help users customize the tests and extend capabilities for private MIBs
• New criteria-based facility for saving test results based on any grouping of tests. Criteria may be based on passed tests, failed tests, failed windows, or any combination.

New support for Windows 95 also makes it easy to install the SNMP Test Suite 4.0 on less expensive hardware for testing, and even a laptop for portable applications. Menu support has also been integrated and extended to make the test applications easier to use.

Extensible Testing with Tcl/Tk

The SNMP Test Suite, Revision 4.0, has a completely revised SNMP engine written in C++ that interfaces with test case scripts written in Tcl. The result is a new set of compliance testing tools for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) that are faster, more versatile, and can be customized using the Tcl scripting language.

Tcl is the Tool Command Language originally developed at the University of California at Berkeley and Sun Microsystems. Tcl has been made freely available on all computing platforms and has quickly become the industry standard for network testing. Tk is an X11 toolkit based on Tcl which can be used to create the graphical user interface. When used together, Tcl provides a powerful scripting language capable of constructing almost any test and Tk provides the ability to create customizable GUIs for the tester.

InterWorking Labs now offers all of its test scripts in Tcl/Tk, and these scripts interface with a new SNMP engine written in C++ which replaces the previous ISODE engine. InterWorking Labs also ships source code for the test scripts and binary code for the SNMP engine; an important plus since Tcl is an interpretive language so it is relatively easy to modify the test scripts since Tcl/Tk is an open architecture.

"InterWorking Labs new Internet testing tools are a natural match for the scripting capabilities of Tcl," said John Ousterhout, Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems and creator of Tcl and Tk. "It's great to see the power of the Internet and Tcl brought together on the Windows 95 platform."

InterWorking Labs SNMP Test Suite, Revision 4.0, is available now for a licensing fee of $4,500 for the basic test suite. A demonstration version of the SNMP Test Suite for Windows 95 is available on the Internet at www.iwl.com .

InterWorking Labs also offers the RMON Test Suite, which tests products implementing the Remote Monitor Management Information Base (RMON, RFC 1271), the Printer MIB Test Suite, which is intended to test products for compatibility with the IETF¹s Printer MIB (RFC 1759), and a UPS MIB to test SNMP compatibility in uninterruptible power supplies.

InterWorking Labs has its offices at:

4113 Scotts Valley Drive Suite 200
Scotts Valley, CA 95066-4547
Voice:(831) 430-3610
Fax: (831) 430-9144
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http: www.iwl.com

InterWorking Labs, is a trademark of InterWorking Labs Inc. Windows 95 and Windows NT are registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.