[ghpn-wg] Suggestions for draft-ggf-ghpn-netserv-2

[Michael Welzl]

Dear all,

FINALLY, I found the time to read the netservices
draft. I know that this group has been working on the
document for a long time, and so I'm really sorry that it
took me so long.

Now that I did, I have a question and some suggestions
(mostly nits).

My question is: an "advanced network reservation" service
is mentioned in some places in this document. Where is
this service specified? Is this one of the more concrete
things that was originally contained in netservices-0
and was now removed? Then, where will it be contained - is
a related document in the works?

So here are my suggestions. Note that I'm not a native
English speaker, so any English corrections may be
wrong - it's all just my opinion, and I hope it helps!!



legend:

pg = page
pa = paragraph
l = line
fig = figure
# = remove
=> = replacement
_WORD_ = update (inserted word, changed word, ..)

"=====" marks content suggestions (as opposed to typos and such)



pg 1, pa  1: repetition of "as such"

pg 5 pa 1: "...various flows _THAT_ can be ..."
pa 2: # of in "a few of feedback"
pa 5: # "such as the NM-WG ..." (this information is already in the footnote!)

# pg 5 pa 6, # pg 6 pa 1, 2, 3, 4
... all this is a repetition of previous text!

last pa: "two ways basically to" => "basically to ways..."
"(2) NS _IS_ forming a Grid..."

=====
pg 7 fig 3: I would change (b), as it doesn't reflect the horizontal
nature of interactions at all - in fact, it looks quite vertical. There
are no interactions between NS and grid services (or other NS's) shown.
======

pg 8 pa 3: remove "Etc." at the end or include it in the last sentence.

last pa, l 1: I noticed "signalling" here - is this a British or American
document? I guess it's the latter (i.e. you ought to have "signaling"
here) - although there is quite a bit of British text in this document
(e.g. the Network Monitoring Service section, 5.2.8). In any case, the
spelling should be consistent - no problem with a spell checker  :-)

There's probably a grammatical singular/plural issue in the same
sentence - "enable" refers to plural, but "is provided" doesn't...

======
My answer to the query outlined on pg 10 / 11 / 12: I would vote
for option 4 (Franco's proposal). It seems like an "information
service" would be something you query, and the information is not
supposed to change all the time (things like the topology, and
link capacities could go in there, I guess). I envision a monitoring
service as an online tool that I can use to (for instance, manually)
shift resources from one place to the other on-the-fly when I see
that something goes wrong.

Of course, the process could be automatic, but assuming about manual
operation simplifies things in my opinion. If I were to manually run
a Grid application, I'd first check the information service to guide
my scheduling decision, then run it and keep checking the monitoring
service to make updates while my application is active.
======

pg 14 pa 5 bullet 3: "it is clear _THAT_ monitoring..."

pg 25 pa 2: there's a [?] reference.

pg 26, pa 1, l 1: "_THE_ OGSA framework..."

pg 27 pa 3: "It is clear that _THE_ Grid Service model share_S_ the same..."

pa 4: "As mentioned earlier" => "Since" here, and
"system: hence, it is..." => "system, it is ..."
Reason: the statement that you're referring to is just in
the previous sentence. So, it's like:
"X.
As mentioned earlier, X. Hence, Y."

which is weird to me, but:
"X.
Since X, Y."

might work.


pa 5: "part-details" => "them"

The last sentence of pg 27 made me smile. It is correct
that abstraction enables us to build more complex systems -
so maybe we should abandon abstraction in Grids, after all  :-)

Then, I had to laugh really hard because the very next sentence
says: "Always strive for simplicity." Now this really sounds
like a contradiction - we should use abstraction because it
enables us to build really complex things and still use them,
but at the same time, we should always strive for simplicity.

Perhaps changing the word "build" would do the trick.
What about "Abstraction enables us to utilize complex systems."...
or something of that sort...

pg 28 pa2: "services make_S_ it difficult..."

pg 28 pa 4: I think that the last sentence ("An indication that
one has defined...") is unclear.

pa 5 l 1: "_THE_ structure of the implementation..."

l 5: "document allow[#s] state information..."

below: "Resuse" => "Reuse"


Finally, I found it disturbing that most, but not all
of the text is center justified - some pages, e.g. 25-28
are left justified. This should be changed to give the
document are more homogeneous look.

All in all, I found this a useful document but partially
tough to read.


I hope that this feedback is useful,

cheers,
Michael