[occi-wg] Update of Core & Models and Infrastructure

Tue Sep 7 00:41:21 CDT 2010

Hi,
this model contains basic changes:), some notes/questions:

[1] Does the model drop categories, ie. reflection and composition or did you just leave it out for simplification?
Actually I think such drop would help the model, well at least in my point of view: (1) until the model is small
(only 3 primary classes within the Infrastructure model and some other secondary tech class) reflection does
not give much and also (2) until there is no mixin example compisition gives nothing. Also when needed
such behaviour could be added later... during the evolution of the model (ie. when targeting PaaS, SaaS).

[2] I couldn't catch the roal of templates, yet. In existing services (like EC2 (?), libcloud API, OpenNebula)
templates define predefined attributes that is they act like a bootstrap for creating resources. I do not
see this behaviour within the model - so what is the role of templates?:)

[3] I think dangling links could/should be refined. According to CAP theorem [1] distributed systems seem to
have some limitation, however I really think that eventually the cloud/should be notified on resource changes it
is interested in. That is: maybe not always consistent, but at least eventually they are (ie.: BASE [2]).
This might have impact on the model ie. you may decide that you put such notifications within the protocol's
scope but strictly speaking this is not necessarry (OCCI simply reflects the data received through CMS-backend
integration but doesn't assist it).

Cheers,
Gyula

---

[1] CAP: http://www.julianbrowne.com/article/viewer/brewers-cap-theorem
[2] BASE: http://www.infoq.com/articles/pritchett-latency,
http://blog.tekelec.com/blog/bid/9608/FAQ-What-does-Soft-State-mean

________________________________
Feladó: Gary Mazz [garymazzaferro at gmail.com<mailto:garymazzaferro at gmail.com>]
Küldve: 2010. szeptember 6. 23:39
Címzett: Ralf Nyren
Másolatot kap: Andy Edmonds; Csom Gyula; occi-wg at ogf.org<mailto:occi-wg at ogf.org>
Tárgy: Re: [occi-wg] Update of Core & Models and Infrastructure

After close examination of the changes, I have a concern about the UML diagram for the model. The UML is a class diagram used primarily to describe a data model of an implementation. It also contains the legacy "Kind" design element which has no purpose other than as a place holder for a couple of attributes.  Below, there is an new element called Groups. It a way to organize resource sets in a container. This provides a formalized mechanism to organize provisioned resources not assigned to another resource, ie. storage. Template is more or less a specialization of Groups.

A more realistic abstraction is:

[Refence Model]

EXTERNAL RESOURCES
There is also a special case for linking to external resources. There has been some discussion of about presenting some preview information about the external resource in the link. This would impose either requirements and constraints on the external systems as well as polluting the OCCI model with meta data from systems out of the OCCI domain.

Creating an OCCI resource acting as a proxy to external resources would limit the impact of external meta data on the OCCI model. The proxy model would also provide an opportunity to develop standardize mappings specification from external system metat data to OCCI resource metadata. Resulting in a cleaner, more manageable model for this use case. See drawing below:

[External Link Diagram]

Ralf Nyren wrote:

Thanks for the comments. I have updated the document.

  Changelog:
* Rewrote Category definition to clarify static types versus introducing
new behaviour to resource instances.
* Rewrote Template definition adding recommended use of Templates.
* Added Template use case examples, i.e. how to use Categories outside of
the static type system.
* Added subsection on Category hierarchies.
* Moved extension stuff to the Extensibility section.
* The new Extensibility section is somewhat repetitive but as long as it
is consistent that should be ok.

Hopefully we can finish of the core&models doc soon enough and focus on
the HTTP Rendering document. The HTTP Rendering document will be what most
people will read anyway.

regards, Ralf

On Sun, 05 Sep 2010 02:36:46 +0200, Andy Edmonds <andy at edmonds.be><mailto:andy at edmonds.be> wrote:

Ditto on the good work! :-)

Inline...

Andy
andy.edmonds.be

2010/9/4 Csom Gyula <csom at interface.hu><mailto:csom at interface.hu>

Agree:) Some notes and questions:

(1) Since OCCI has itw own, special view on the "type system" hence a
separate section on the topic
would be useful. Besides extensions as Thijs proposed, I think the
general
type concept
could/should be described. This could help users (either implementors,
extenders or providers)
to get the point and could shorten the learning curve.

To my understanding (according to the doc and the previous chat) OCCI's
type system has the
following 4 characteristics:

* Extensible: OCCI lets providers extend the builtin types by (1)
subclassing resources and (2) creating
user defined categories.

Yep :-)

* Composable: OCCI supports multiple-inheritance-like feature through a
mixin like model - that is
(generic) behaviour can be introduced to OCCI resouces by attaching
categories.

Yep :-) Just to clarify new behaviours can be introduced to resource
instances (this supports the next point you make)

* Static: Similar to traditional OO languages and in contrast with
dynamic
languages, OCCI uses
a static type system. Once defined, a type becomes frozen and cannot be
modified later. That is if
someone wants to introduce a new behaviour to an existing type she can
but
in order to that she
has to subclass the original type, or more explicitely: new attributes,
categories cannot be added
to already defined types.

Yep :-)

* Discovarable: OCCI has builtin reflection capabilities: through
Categories one could query
the available attrbiutes and actions of a resource. So if someone wants
to
implement some
generic client behaviour (for instance a generic UI client) she gots
some
support from the protocol.

Yep :-) Minor point but I'd call this reflection as opposed to
discoverability.

I just wanted to sum it up cause I think the above feature should be
described and also because my
questions are related to these topics:)

These four points above should be placed into the model section.

(2) Extensibility: no question. Maybe within 4.1.2.1 (or within a
separate
chapter) it could be further
emphasized that extensibility is a recursive feature, ie. OCCI supports
extension of extensions.
Its just a documentation note, since support for inheritance tree is
implicitely quite clear from the
following sentence on categories:

"The related set MUST include a, direct or indirect, reference to the
Resource base type category".

As far as I understand "indirect" is the keyword here:)

(3) Composable: Namespace support (like occi.xxx.yyy) or kinda could be
handled/clarified at this
level. That is the spec could/should clarify either (1) how to avoid
name
collisions or (2) how name
resolution works in such cases.

To avoid namespace clashes we've defined that only the OCCI spec can use
the
occi.* for attribute names and use http://schemas.ogf.org/occi/* for
scheme
in category. After that there is no further normative guarantee other
than
the opportunity for implementors to register their extensions with the
working group (through mail and entry into a planned wiki registry)

Also I think examples could/should be discovered/provided for the mixin
feature since the domain model
in its current form (including the Core (ie. Kind, Resource, Action and
Link) and the Infrastructure
(Compute, Network and Storage) represents just a single inheritance
tree.
Is there a plan to do so or
some existing example I missed?:)

Agreed and yes there should be some examples floating about. Maybe:

http://forge.ogf.org/sf/wiki/do/viewPage/projects.occi-wg/wiki/ExamplesUseCaseScenarios
and
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AS0AExvzzYt7YWQ2enFodmt6czlfMzRnM25mMnJmZA&hl=en

(4) Discovery: It is clear that for every Cloud object at least one
Category should be assigned (ie.
Kind.categories' multiplicity is 1..*). However it is not clear whether
all
attributes and actions a Cloud object supports should be exposed through
Categories or a Resource can introduce its own
attributes/actions not exposed (hence not discovarable) through any
Category.

IMO the resource should be bound to the contract it presents through
categories and so not introduce "backdoor" attributes/actions. We can
guarantee this in the spec and recommend that those wishing to extend
follow
best practices. Those best practises should be detailed in a section
dedicated to those wanting to create their own extensions.

For instance:

Compute is assigned the
http://schemas.ogf.org/occi/infrastructure#computeCategory. Compute has
some attributes within the occi.compute namespace
(architecture, cores, hostname, etc.) and also some actions (start,
stop,
etc.). Now, in this particular case, the question is whether someone
could query the Compute attribute (names), actions through the compute
category or should she consult the spec?

Why could they not do both?

(5) Kind notation. I am just wondering whether the term is an intuitive
one
or not. Implicitely it has
type/class semantics (at least for me:)). What's more as far as I
remember/know the term "kind"
historically was introduced in place of "type", but could be wrong.
Anyway
Kind represents the
attributes that is common to all cloud objects and not the attributes of
classes (ie. Kind is not for
reflection). In programming languages this distinction is made through
Object and Class classes.
The former represents the common behaviour of all objects and the latter
defines the special
characteristics of types. Maybe another notation? that better reflects
that
"Kind" is about
objects/entites and not about classes/types? that also clearly
distinguish
it from Category?

Historically, Kind was a synonym for Resource. I'm not sure of what other
name we could use but perhaps if we simply explained the difference in
the
spec that should suffice.

Cheers
Gyula

________________________________
Feladó: occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org<mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org> [
occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org<mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org>] ; meghatalmazó:
Thijs Metsch [tmetsch at platform.com<mailto:tmetsch at platform.com><mailto:tmetsch at platform.com><mailto:tmetsch at platform.com>]
Küldve: 2010. szeptember 4. 12:54
Címzett: Ralf Nyren; occi-wg at ogf.org<mailto:occi-wg at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg at ogf.org>
Tárgy: Re: [occi-wg] Update of Core & Models and Infrastructure

Great stuff - Thanks Ralf! Especially of keeping the HTTP stuff out of
the
Core :-) Looks much better now.

Just wondering if we should move the extensibility sections to one
section...but that's just an editorial thought.

Cheers,

-Thijs

-----Original Message-----
From: occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org<mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg-bounces at ogf.org> on behalf
of
Ralf Nyren
Sent: Sat 04-Sep-10 12:41
To: occi-wg at ogf.org<mailto:occi-wg at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg at ogf.org><mailto:occi-wg at ogf.org>
Subject: [occi-wg] Update of Core & Models and Infrastructure

Hi,

I have finished and uploaded a rather significant update of the Core &
Models [1] document. The Infrastructure document [2] has been updated
accordingly while the HTTP Rendering document is still in the works.

The Core & Models changelog:
 - Updated UML diagram. Fixes the issue with Actions.
 - Updated and re-structured description/definition of the base types.
Please read everything through.
 - Templates definition added, it is just a Category but without the
requirement to be a type construct.
 - Added full description of the Category base type.
 - Removed all REST and HTTP stuff. This information will reappear in
the
HTTP Rendering document.
 - HTTP related Open Issues will reappear in the HTTP Rendering
document.
 - Extension rules properly defined.
 - Discovery mechanism from the Core perspective.

Hopefully the new version should be a lot more consistent and only
address
things relevant to the Core specification. The information which was
specific to the HTTP rendering will reappear in that document when it is
completed.

I put some effort into describing how to extend OCCI Core so each base
type now has its on subsection describing the rules for domain-specific
extensions.

Comments welcome.

regards, Ralf

[1]

http://forge.ogf.org/sf/wiki/do/viewPage/projects.occi-wg/wiki/CoreAndModels
[2]

http://forge.ogf.org/sf/wiki/do/viewPage/projects.occi-wg/wiki/Infrastructure
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