[DRMAA-WG] Conference call minutes - Jul 28th 2009

[Daniel Gruber]

Attendees:
   Peter Troeger
   Dan Templeton
   Roger Brobst
   Daniel Gruber

* Meeting Secretary:
   Daniel Gruber

* Report from DRMAA2 Face-To-Face Meeting @ ISC 2009  -  Introducing the 
new DRMAA2 API

1. Renaming "job category" into "configuration name"
and "native specification" into "native options" in order to provide
a better description for these mechanisms (and therefore adoption) for 
user.
-> collecting names from used "configurations" in order to abbreviate later
a naming scheme

2. restartable session and concurrent session

* SessionManager is connected to a single DRM
-> TODO do we have a problem with the contact string?
- with session name older sessions can be opened
- Sessions are only a DRMAA concept and re-opening will work
only on same machine with same user
- init() and exit() not longer required

* MonitoringSession:
- for separation
- additionally machine monitoring
- global view which is not connected to a submission session
- read only
-> getListOfJobs() getListOfMachines()
- how to get information? create new query language? use job template 
concept? use JSDL?
- TODO have a closer look
- a problem could be the amount of data

3. Representation of jobs via Job object
- more clean
- job methods directly operates on jobs
- in language bindings (like C) there would be still a job id
- they could build a wrapper in order to call functions which needs the 
job ids

4. The difference of old synchronize() and wait() is hard to understand
- New model: job session level and job level
- job reaping not longer in API
- TODO problem with JobSession.waitAny() which is based on transitions
-> a need for: 1. Tell me when something happens
                       2. Tell me when job reaches the state x
-> problem: how long do we need to store transitions? what is when they 
never get fetched?
-> problem: what is when jobs alter states between fetching all states 
and calling waitAny()?
-> do we need a job list as parameter?
-> does it have to be based on transitions?

   * Next conference call: August 4th 2009


Daniel G.