[Capi-bof] Charter for Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) Working Group

[Edmonds, AndrewX]

Inlined some questions…
From: capi-bof-bounces at ogf.org [mailto:capi-bof-bounces at ogf.org] On Behalf Of samj at samj.net
Sent: 25 March 2009 14:51
To: capi-bof at ogf.org; samj at samj.net
Subject: [Capi-bof] Charter for Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) Working Group
<snip>
Group summary:

Cloud computing can be categorized into three main areas (Cloud Infrastructure or "IaaS", Cloud Platforms or "PaaS" and Cloud Software or "SaaS") which all involve the on-demand delivery of computing resources. There are a growing number of infrastructure (IaaS) providers offering elastic capacity, whereby server "instances" are executed in their proprietary infrastructure and billed on a utility computing basis (typically virtual machines on a per instance per hour basis). There are also a number of commercial and open source products which seek to replicate this functionality in-house while exposing compatible interfaces so as "hybrid cloud" operating environments can be created.
[AE: ] It might be useful to include the idea of not only provisioning server instances but data centre instances, which are simply a collection of server instances joined by an abstract network configuration. One server in my view does not equate to infrastructure ☺

The Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) will deliver a common interface for remote management of cloud computing infrastructure, allowing for the development of interoperable tools for common tasks including deployment, autonomic scaling and monitoring. The scope of the specification will be all high level functionality required for the life-cycle management of workloads (e.g. virtual machines) and containers (e.g. hypervisors) supporting service elasticity.
[AE: ] Does this imply that the management of hypervisors will be actionable via the proposed interface?

<snip>

The resulting interface will be clear and concise, standards based (RESTful HTTP) and thus easily implemented and consumed. As it will be largely derived from examination of existing implementations, it can be viewed as a "consensus" of the innovation to date.
[AE: ] Need we specify a REST approach here at this stage?

Goals/deliverables:
The primary deliverable is a technical specification of the Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI) in one or more open formats (e.g. DocBook) and under an open license (e.g. Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Unported).

Other deliverables that may be created in the process include use cases, surveys, presentations, user manuals, implementator guides, etc.

Reference implementation(s) are specifically excluded, as are details relating to supporting infrastructure (such as storage and network hardware configuration).

Timetable:
OGF25<http://www.ogf.org/OGF25/>

March 2-6 2009

Cloud Computing API BoF Session

OGF26<http://www.ogf.org/OGF26/>

May 26-29 2009

Overview & Rough API Presentations

OGF27<http://www.ogf.org/OGF27/>

October 12-16 2009

Draft API Presentation

OGF28<http://www.ogf.org/OGF28/>

TBA

Final API Presentation


Exit strategy:
The work of this group will be deemed complete when all the documents are completed.

Questions:

 1.  Is the scope of the proposed group sufficiently focused?
Yes, the group will deliver an API addressing a confined set of requirements for Cloud Infrastructure (IaaS)
 2.  Are the topics that the group plans to address clear and relevant for the Grid research, development, industrial, implementation, and/or application user community?
Yes, many grid deployments today are related to cloud computing offerings. Delivery of an API is beneficial both to grid providers and their users. Grid and cloud are complementary, with the vast majority of cloud offerings today being powered by grid infrastructures.
 3.  Will the formation of the group foster (consensus-based) work that would not be done otherwise?
Yes, efforts to date have thus far failed to deliver an API suitable for widespread adoption. Within OGF this initiative is unique and forms a great opportunity to quickly create a standard for research and industry.
 4.  Do the group's activities overlap inappropriately with those of another OGF group or to a group active in another organization such as IETF or W3C?
No, existing efforts to date have been conducted by commercial entities (giving rise to governance concerns) or by ad-hoc standards groups. The specification will complement standard(s) from other groups (e.g. HTTP, OAuth, OVF, SSL/TLS).
 5.  Are there sufficient interest and expertise in the group's topic, with at least several people willing to expend the effort that is likely to produce significant results over time?
Yes, the group already has sufficient active members to deliver the specification including representatives from academia, industry and consumers. There is a significant body of work already completed from which a "consensus" can be derived. Research projects including SLA at SOI, OpenNebula, RESERVOIR and Nimbus have also stated an interest and some have active representation already.
 6.  Does a base of interested consumers (e.g., application developers, Grid system implementers, industry partners, end-users) appear to exist for the planned work?
Yes, there is already a thriving ecosystem of cloud computing providers and consumers who could benefit from this work.
 7.  Does the OGF have a reasonable role to play in the determination of the technology?
Yes, the OGF determines standards relating to grid computing. Most cloud computing deployments today are based on grid infrastructures and the two fields are complementary. Furthermore, most actors in the grid space are also active in cloud computing.

Group status:
BoF

Public description (for print & web):
"Group summary" above.
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