[occi-wg] Fwd: vCloud API

[Gary Mazz]

Hi,

I agree with Shlomo

Although useful, I see support for a special storage device like "floppy 
drive" being problematic for interoperability across providers. OCCI 
does support storage, which can be mapped/mounted by the operating 
systems to any type of drive. Currently, OCCI does not support the 
mapping of any other drives (ie hdxx, sdxx, cxxtxxsxx, A:-Z:), or any 
specific storage volume placement in the operating system. Storage 
device maps are relegated to the internal configurations of the 
operating systems and should remain there until when or if occi decides 
to support internal operating system configuration items. I find it 
difficult justifying altering this strategy for a floppy configuration.

Incorporating this special case has much wider impacts to the 
specification, it adds a currently unsupported feature: "mapping storage 
resources to operating system devices" which has broad impacts to the 
specification and will significantly increase the complexity of OCCI 
implementations for many providers..

-gary

shlomo.swidler at gmail.com wrote:
> Sam,
>
> I meant "it's not necessary to distinguish a virtual floppy..." for 
> the use case I described (transferring data without using the network).
>
> For legacy apps that rely on a resource called a "floppy drive" it is 
> needed. And I agree that the way to do this is to designate it with an 
> adjective (= attribute), like the word "floppy". If there was some 
> verb that you could do to a "floppy" disk which distinguished it from 
> a non-"floppy" disk then "floppy disk" *might* be justified as a 
> separate noun. [I am of course ignoring the oft-overlooked use case 
> for floppy disks: frisbee.]
>
> .. Shlomo
>
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Sam Johnston <samj at samj.net 
> <mailto:samj at samj.net>> wrote:
>
>     Shlomo,
>
>     I'd be hesitant to remove legacy support for something that
>     someone somewhere will need. For example you can move the
>     encryption key for the Windows user accounts database (SAM) to a
>     floppy which is consulted at boot (see q310305
>     <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310105>), some small linux
>     distributions boot from floppies (or consult them for config - see
>     gibraltar firewall), etc.
>
>     However I'd planned to implement this as an attribute and if I
>     remember well they're a noun in vCloud (this is one of my main
>     grievances about vCloud - lots of nouns, albeit far less than its
>     predecessors). Their API is very similar to the current thinking
>     for OCCI, though I think there's still a far bit of unnecessary
>     complexity we can boil off (which is no wonder when you consider
>     its roots).
>
>     Sam
>
>
>     On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 8:53 AM, <shlomo.swidler at gmail.com
>     <mailto:shlomo.swidler at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         To the list this time.
>
>         ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>         From: <shlomo.swidler at gmail.com <mailto:shlomo.swidler at gmail.com>>
>         Date: Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 9:53 AM
>         Subject: Re: [occi-wg] vCloud API
>         To: Randy Bias <randyb at neotactics.com
>         <mailto:randyb at neotactics.com>>
>
>
>         Randy,
>
>         Do share the use case, please?
>
>         It could be useful in transferring small amounts of data (e.g.
>         secret account credentials) between machines without using the
>         network. But it's not necessary to distinguish a virtual
>         floppy disk from any other type of disk, as long as you can
>         make a small enough volume size (1.44 Mb?) for the cost to be
>         irrelevant.
>
>         .. Shlomo
>
>
>         On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Randy Bias
>         <randyb at neotactics.com <mailto:randyb at neotactics.com>> wrote:
>
>             I've actually found very good use for these.
>
>
>             --Randy
>
>
>             On Sep 1, 2009, at 3:25 PM, Wes Felter wrote:
>
>>             http://communities.vmware.com/community/developer/forums/vcloudapi
>>
>>             It supports virtual floppy disks; clearly we must add
>>             this essential
>>             feature to OCCI immediately. :-)
>>
>>             Wes Felter
>>             _______________________________________________
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>>             http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/occi-wg
>
>
>             Randy Bias, Cloud Strategist
>             +1 (415) 939-8507 [m], randyb at neotactics.com
>             <mailto:randyb at neotactics.com>
>             BLOG: http://cloudscaling.com
>
>
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