[ogsa-bes-wg] Tracker item

[Ian Foster]

Hi,

Either I am not registered properly (although I have received email saying 
that I am), or there is something funny about my configuration, but I 
cannot yet comment on trackers. So in the meantime, I will send a comment 
by email, which I will add to the tracker when I am able:

----------------------------

Tracker: BES V1.0
Title: Change Container to Activity Container
Description: Eliminate confusion between web services container and the BES 
container.

Ian Foster Comment:

Having read and edited the specification at length, I still do not 
understand the meaning or purpose of the "container" concept.

I understand that different instantiations of a Basic Execution Service 
implementation may be configured to create "activities" on different 
computational resources. E.g., one might create activities on a single 
computer, another might create activities in a Web services container, 
another might dispatch create requests to a parallel computer, another 
might even dispatch create requests to one or more other BESs.

However, I don't understand what the term "container" refers to in this 
context. Is the "container":

a) the system component that accepts the incoming requests, decides what to 
do with them, invokes the appropriate operation(s) on the corresponding 
computational resources to create "activities", maintains state associated 
with those activities, etc.;

b) the computational resources on which activities are created; or

c) both of the above?

Reading the specification, it seems to me that the answer is supposed to be 
(b). However, sometimes things read as if (a) is intended.

I raise this issue because I think it relates to this tracker. The term 
"container" does indeed introduce confusion (IMHO). Thus, why not remove it 
altogether?