[gfs-wg] Minutes of 7/20,21 GFS-WG Conference call

[Osamu Tatebe]

Hi all,

Please look at minutes of the last conference call.  The discussion
includes several changes and decisions for the final RNS document.

Thanks,
Osamu

---
GFS-WG conference call
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
3:30pm to 5pm (PDT)

Note taker: Osamu Tatebe (AIST)

Participants
------------
Manuel Pereira
Ken Wood
Arun Jagatheesan
Osamu Tatebe

Agenda
------
Introduction & agenda bushing ( 5min)
Recent change                 (10min)
Alias junction issues         (30min)
Other minor issues            (15min)

Meeting
-------
* Recent change from the document on July 8
  https://forge.gridforum.org/projects/gfs-wg/document/RNS-Proposed_Final_Draft-v1.7/en/7

 - reflect comments from OGSA-WG

  o Appendix of Grid File System Profile

   - better to focus RNS.  keeping consistency level is important.
     basically, appendix is not so important.

   - we will start Grid File System Profile document as a separate
     document from next week.

   -> The appendix will be taken out

  o Section 3 "Resource Endpoint Resolution Service"

   - this part will be taken over by OGSA Naming WG.

   -> The Section 3 will be taken out

  o WS-enumeration

   - Microsoft proposes WS-enumeration that provides similar
     functionality of iterator in list operation.

   -> WS-enumeration specification is not standardized yet.  it lacks
      features to improve performance.  we can follow the spec once it
      is standardized.

* Alias junction issues

 - Background: alias junction emulates a hardlink functionality.
   Once, we are using OID to specify a target of an alias junction.
   In this case, we just care about AliasCount of the target entry to
   avoid to be a broken reference.  On the other hand, we take out OID
   completely in the document, and use pathname to specify a target
   entry instead.  In this case, an alias junction may be orphaned
   when one of entries in the pathname is moved or renamed.  Section
   1.1.2.4 "Alias Junction" needs to be modified.

 - Two options;

  (1) add the above constraint in the third paragraph "Prohibit
      modification of the target"

  (2) make alias junction an optional feature of RNS, while the
      service needs to update the TargetPath property dynamically if
      it supports the alias junction.

  -> We choose (2) since it is simpler and reasonable.

* Other issues in RNS Specification

 - There is a comment from OGSA-WG such that RNS should be simple and
   does not need to have several types in Junction.

  o Since we take out the RNS Resolver in Section 3, logical name does
    not make sence so much.  So, we can collapse Endpoint Reference
    Junction and Virtualized Reference Junction.  Also, Alias Junction
    is now an optional junction.

  -> We will have three types of junctions;

   o Endpoint Reference Junction
   o Referral Junction
   o Alias Junction [optional]

   Referral Junction is a special type of Endpoint Reference Junction,
   which points to an entry in (separate) RNS.  On the other hand, for
   easy federation of RNSs (this is quite a typical usage of RNS), to
   have a separate type is reasonable.

 - In Figure 2 in Section 2 "Federation of Resource Namespace
   Service", Path specified in list operation to the RNS
   (research.acme.org) seems to be a full path not an absolute path.
   Need to clarify this.

* Submission plan

 - After reflecting above changes, we will distribute the final
   release candidate.  We will submit it in the *first week of
   August*, although we try to reflect every comments from now to the
   submission date.

* Architecture Informational Document

 - soon, it will be in 30-days public comment phase.
 - Osamu suggests strongly to take out the Section 4.5 Standard
   Interfaces since it is confusing.

 - we need to start architectural sketch for every POSIX I/O
   operations as soon as possible.

* F2F meeting

 - for further collaboration with SNIA and other groups, we will set
   up a f2f meeting in August.  Details are discussed later.

---
Osamu Tatebe, Ph.D.   Tel: +81-29-861-5844  FAX: +81-29-862-6601
Grid Technology Research Center,
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
AIST Tsukuba Central 2, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 3058568 JAPAN
E-mail: o.tatebe at aist.go.jp     http://phase.hpcc.jp/people/tatebe/