I was thinking about the following levels of EAI support.  We can assign each a different weighting dependent on importance of scenario (which is a judgment call we must make up front), and measure support levels by how many points a client, server or service gets.

Technical Support (clients)

Can send to an EAI address

Can send to an IDN-style email address

Can receive from an EAI address

Can receive from an IDN-style email address

Can associate EAI and IDN-style addresses as the same account for searching and sorting purposes

Technical Support (servers and services)

Can receive mail sent to an EAI address and send it to a compliant client

Can receive mail sent to an IDN-style email address and send it to a compliant client

Measuring and Monitoring Support

Can track the number of EAI accounts supported by each provider (e.g.. Coremail has ~50K; SaudiNIC is “negligible”; 163 is still at 0, etc.) as they are offered and grow over time

Can track the number of incoming EAI messages being received over time per provider

Can track the number of incoming “IDN-style” messages being received over time per provider

From: ua-discuss-bounces@icann.org [mailto:ua-discuss-bounces@icann.org] On Behalf Of Abdeslam NASRI
Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2016 11:51 PM
To: Don Hollander <don.hollander@icann.org>; UA-discuss@icann.org
Subject: Re: [UA-discuss] Wanted: Some thoughts on measuring EAI

Hello Don and All,

In some earlier discussion with an EURid report présenter I suggested that UASG can issue a kind of UA IDN and EAI certification levels that can be acquired by software vendors and community developers. A certification level is gained by a software (client app, server App or API) when a standardized Test Suite -automated or not- is passed successfully.

The Test Suite evolve over time as we keep discovering issues. Tests should go far beyond a few ping commands to protocol implementation level and optional functionalities.

This way, either ICANN or any organization can initiate the EAI-IDN-compliance-validation process.

Bests,
Abdeslam NASRI

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From: Don Hollander
Sent: 4/14/2016 1:08 AM
To: UA-discuss@icann.org
Subject: [UA-discuss] Wanted:  Some thoughts on measuring EAI

One of the things I would like to do is measure the extent of EAI deployment today  (which is included in this year’s business plan and budget) and for each of the next few years.

I’d also like to get a measure of how different client and server applications are able to handle both EAI and IDNs, with ‘handle' being the ability to ACCEPT and DISPLAY the different permutations we’ve got in our UA Use Cases.

I think that there should be some automatable way of testing servers – perhaps sending an SMTPUTF8 Request and measuring the response.   But how do we identify the servers to query?   Is there a list somewhere?   Do we leverage the work of the Anti-Virus and Spam monitors?

Could we automate the client software evaluation or will this require an install and manual exercise and evaluation?

So, before we issue a Help Wanted request for email evaluation I would appreciate your thoughts on how we might do this evaluation.

 Thanks in advance.

Don