[dmis-bof] Comments on the charter?

William E. Allcock allcock at mcs.anl.gov
Mon Dec 19 08:51:31 CST 2005


I have actually been putting some thought into this as well, and I have to
ask this question:

What is the real benefit of doing a functional spec?

WS-I and WSRF renderings will NOT interoperate, so I am sort of missing the
point.  I can see that it is a way of discussing needed functionality
without getting caught up in religious wars over things like WS-I vs. WSRF,
but I don't think that is the issue here.  We have 4 implementations, 3 of
which I know are deployed in "production" environments (I suspect the 4th is
in Unicore, but I don't know that for a fact).  We know *how* to do this
stuff, the goal was, at least in my mind, inter-operability.  However, if we
can't find a compromise, I have to ask another question:

Does forming this WG make sense?

I am willing to put the effort forth to drive this WG if I see a tangible
benefit at the end.  However, if the end benefit is going to be
non-interoperable implementations, that happen to use the same names for
state or some such, then I can't personally justify expending the time on
this, unless someone can convince me that there is benefit that I am
missing.

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Kunszt [mailto:peter.kunszt at cern.ch] 
> Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 8:09 AM
> To: Dave Berry
> Cc: Michel Drescher; allcock at mcs.anl.gov; Hiro Kishimoto; 
> dmis-bof at ggf.org; Ian Foster
> Subject: RE: [dmis-bof] Comments on the charter?
> 
> 
> 
> hi dave
> 
> thanks! i admit that i didn't have the time to follow the latest
> developments in the past year. for the open source stuff,
> i have not found e.g. the jboss and apache implementations in any of
> the mainstream (say axis) code yet... or did i miss it?
> 
> but back on topic: i think we all agree that we need 
> standardisation on
> the transfer interface. the question is now what is the 
> context we embed
> this standardisation into? if it is OGSA/WSRF then for 
> production grids
> as EGEE we cannot expect to have robust off-the-shelf implementations
> within the next 18 months (that is my personal assessment of the
> current state of the art, maybe i'm wrong). if it is WS-I then there
> is a possibility to have implementations very soon, and thus have
> interoperability within a short time.
> 
> we agreed here that the functional spec of the interface can be done
> first, and then the rendering into WS-I or WSRF can come as needed. 
> so all i'm saying is: don't use a concept like WS-Addressing in the
> functional spec as it is rendering-specific! however, we can use
> a "URL" as a concept as it is generic enough. keeping the functional
> spec independent of the implementation is a good idea. then of course
> the WSRF rendering can and should use concepts that are within its
> context, including WS-Addressing.
> 
> of course how the different implementations/renderings will 
> interoperate
> is a different topic altogether. if the functional semantics are the
> same then at least you can write clients that understand both flavors.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> peter
> 
> 
> On Mon, 2005-12-19 at 09:39 +0000, Dave Berry wrote:
> > Hi Peter,
> > 
> > There are implementations of WS-A by at least MS, IBM, BEA, 
> Sun, JBOSS &
> > Apache.  
> > 
> > Dave.  
> > 
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Peter Kunszt [mailto:peter.kunszt at cern.ch] 
> > > Sent: 19 December 2005 08:38
> > > To: Dave Berry
> > > Cc: Michel Drescher; allcock at mcs.anl.gov; Hiro Kishimoto; 
> > > dmis-bof at ggf.org; Ian Foster
> > > Subject: RE: [dmis-bof] Comments on the charter?
> > > 
> > > hi dave
> > > 
> > > can you point me to the implementation of ws-addressing 
> that you refer
> > > to as 'just about everybody'?
> > > 
> > > cheers
> > > peter
> > > 
> > > On Sat, 2005-12-17 at 16:23 +0000, Dave Berry wrote:
> > > > I'd push for WS-Addressing EPRs where possible.  The 
> simplest EPR is
> > > > just a wrapped URI (actually an IRI, I believe), so it is a
> > > > straightforward extension of using URLs.  WS-Addressing is 
> > > implemented
> > > > by just about everybody, I believe.
> > > > 
> > > > If you use WS-A then it should be straightforward to 
> generalise or
> > > > extend to include other specs based on WS-A.  These 
> include WSRF and
> > > > WS-Naming, of course, but also other specs being developed 
> > > within the
> > > > industry.
> > > > 
> > > > Having said that, I would add the caveat that I'm not 
> > > expert on WS-A and
> > > > it would be good to get input from someone who really 
> > > understands this
> > > > stuff in detail.
> > > > 
> > > > Dave.
> > > > 
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: owner-dmis-bof at ggf.org 
> > > [mailto:owner-dmis-bof at ggf.org] On Behalf
> > > > Of Michel Drescher
> > > > Sent: 16 December 2005 11:04
> > > > To: Peter Kunszt
> > > > Cc: allcock at mcs.anl.gov; Hiro Kishimoto; dmis-bof at ggf.org; 
> > > Ian Foster
> > > > Subject: Re: [dmis-bof] Comments on the charter?
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Hi all,
> > > > 
> > > > On 14 Dec 2005, at 17:06, Peter Kunszt wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > >>>>  - we need to address naming.  What will we accept as 
> > > source and 
> > > > >>>> destination names? URLs? URIs? any string? EPRs?
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> URL seems like a good choice, this would probably suit all
> > > > >> use cases.
> > > > >>> this is what we use in the GSM-WG. we have storage URLs.
> > > > >>> an EPR is nothing more than a decorated URL so a simple URL
> > > > >> would suit
> > > > >>> that too.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> URLs work fine for files, and I *suspect* it will be 
> > > what we use for 
> > > > >> V1.0, but if we take our file blinders off and try and 
> > > think about 
> > > > >> source other than files, i.e. a service that is 
> > > virtualizing some 
> > > > >> non-file data source, we might want EPRs.  This is 
> > > related to the 
> > > > >> next issue.
> > > > >
> > > > > well, if you take rich URLs, you can get away with anything. 
> > > > > ?query=...
> > > > 
> > > > I strongly support URLs. Note that, opposed to the very 
> popular  
> > > > perception, URLs describe *resources*, not (only) files. 
> > > Apart from  
> > > > the scheme and authority parts of URLS (i.e. "http" and  
> > > > "forge.gridforum.org[:80]") URLs describe resources in a  
> > > > hierarchically ordered domain. THe query part is just a 
> piece of  
> > > > information that further transports information 
> specific to the  
> > > > addressed resource.
> > > > 
> > > > So if you want to publish for example the coffee 
> > > temperature in your  
> > > > mug using HTTP, you could do that with the following 
> imaginary URL:
> > > > 
> > > > 	
> http://users.mcs.anl.gov/~allock/resources/sensors/coffem-mug? 
> > > > refresh=10
> > > > 
> > > > Requesting that URL may result in a nice data stream 
> sending the  
> > > > current temperature in 10 second intervals.
> > > > Note that the path element does not necessarily have to map 
> > > to a file  
> > > > system path - refer i.e. to the J2EE Servlet 
> specification that  
> > > > splits the path information into three elements:
> > > > - context path (a J2EE enterprise application)
> > > > - servlet path (a locator for servlets within a J2EE 
> enterprise  
> > > > application)
> > > > - path info    (the residual URL path element)
> > > > All three elements concatenated form the original URL path 
> > > element;  
> > > > and the context path and servlet path may be null. The 
> mapping is  
> > > > purely virtual and is specified in the EAR deployment 
> descriptors.
> > > > 
> > > > >> I guess now that I think about it, your way works too.  
> > > As long as 
> > > > >> the query mechanism is there, as long as you don't send 
> > > a block the 
> > > > >> site doesn't support, you wont fail validation... I 
> > > don't like it, 
> > > > >> but unless we discover a bigger problem than that, I 
> > > guess it is an 
> > > > >> option :-).
> > > > >
> > > > > the trick is easy. you put in an element that you don't 
> > > define. you 
> > > > > then extend it and play around the way you like it, and 
> > > once you know 
> > > > > what you want, you just take it into your mainstream WSDL 
> > > as a proper 
> > > > > part of it. see our discussion/example in 
> > > > > https://uimon.cern.ch/twiki/bin/view/SRMDev/XmlSolution
> > > > 
> > > > This URL requires authentication which I cannot provide 
> for AFS...
> > > > 
> > > > >>
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>>>  - what about scheduling / planning aspects?  Do we want
> > > > >> to include
> > > > >>>> elements in this WSDL that specify rate (bandwidth),
> > > > >> quantity (file
> > > > >>>> size), and timing (START BY, FINISH BY, etc)
> > > > >>>
> > > > >>> our experience: individually for each transfer job: no.
> > > > >> that is very
> > > > >>> complicated and of questionable use.
> > > > >>> on the scale of the service itself as a service
> > > > >>> parameter/configuration: yes.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> I half agree with you.  Clearly the service, may want to 
> > > have limits 
> > > > >> that can be set.  In that regard, it is acting as a 
> > > resource manager 
> > > > >> and protecting the resource for which it is responsible, 
> > > much like a 
> > > > >> compute scheduler.  Btw, I would argue that this is 
> > > outside the scope
> > > > 
> > > > >> of this working group, since an external entity has no 
> > > need to be 
> > > > >> involved with that.  At most we might want to agree on 
> > > some state 
> > > > >> that such a service MAY (in the SPEC sense of the 
> word) expose.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> However, it is not clear to me that requests per job are of 
> > > > >> questionable use.  Clearly they should be optional 
> > > elements, but if 
> > > > >> the submission has no such information, on what 
> basis does the 
> > > > >> service make decisions when it has a resource 
> > > constraint?  I would 
> > > > >> also add priority to the list.  If I have multiple jobs 
> > > submitted, I 
> > > > >> may want to make sure that one of them gets service over 
> > > the others.
> > > > >
> > > > > ok, i was sloppy. it is true that you should be able to 
> > > influence the 
> > > > > priority of your transfers and maybe even their 
> > > speed/bandwidth within
> > > > 
> > > > > your allocated 'quota'.
> > > > 
> > > > Yes, I agree here as well. We're on the right track I 
> > > think, so let's  
> > > > fight over the details in the meetings. ;-)
> > > > 
> > > > Cheers,
> > > > Michel
> > > > 
> > > 
> 





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