[ogsa-wg] OGSA-MWS-BOF at GGF14 on Tues June 28, noon-1:30

Wed Jun 22 05:36:03 CDT 2005

Hi

For me the main issues to address are:
A) Do we start from the web services design principle of COMPOSABILITY of specifications and profiles?
B) If the answer is YES then how are we going to make sure that varoius new GGF profiles and specifications are indeed composable with each other.
Once we have composable profiles it really doesn't matter how many profiles we have. You can use one them or all of them, it is less tidy than having one basic profile but its workable.
If we throw away the design principle of composability, then I am afraid it is back to pre-OGSA pre-Web services era.

Abdeslem

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ogsa-wg at ggf.org [mailto:owner-ogsa-wg at ggf.org]On Behalf Of Subramaniam, Ravi
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 6:29 AM
To: Ian Foster; Marty Humphrey; Ogsa-Wg
Subject: RE: [ogsa-wg] OGSA-MWS-BOF at GGF14 on Tues June 28, noon-1:30

Hi Marty,

The BOF and the motivations you describe sound like a good idea. It would be great to hear your perspectives especially since you have experience with the described specs (WS-RF/WSN and WS-T, WS-E, WS-Enum). I think this is also a good test for the general policy that OGSA has adopted of admitting different profiles that are consistent with the general architecture. 

There has been a discussion around "lack of interoperability" with multiple profiles but without visiting the profiles that are compatible with the architecture one cannot decide which is the most appropriate (from one or many of the criteria like implementation easy, expressiveness, composability etc). Prematurely deciding that only one profile is the right way to go may not be beneficial in the long run. Given the way the industry has evolved, there is a process of "natural selection" and the most sophisticated or theoretical best solution has not won out in most cases. I agree with Mark's observations. Theoretically the degrees of freedom in the number of profiles seem infinite but I don't think in reality it will pan out into the more than a few since the "affinity" of these specs to be in a profile would constrain the number.

Having said this, it would still make sense to be concrete in your discussion of what would be the primary motivation of the BOF and subsequent WG. Your points in response to Ian's question could be added to the formal description of the intent of the BOF. 

Thanks for spawning this discussion.

Ravi

PS: I just read Fred's comments in this thread. I think his points make sense. You may want to state that the need for alternate profiles as a primary assumption (not to be debated) and move on to the salient aspects of what the alternate profiles to be debated in the BOF are.

  _____  

From: owner-ogsa-wg at ggf.org [mailto:owner-ogsa-wg at ggf.org] On Behalf Of Ian Foster
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 7:43 AM
To: Marty Humphrey; 'Ogsa-Wg'
Subject: RE: [ogsa-wg] OGSA-MWS-BOF at GGF14 on Tues June 28, noon-1:30

Marty:

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. And Mark puts it nicely: poetically, even (-:

Ian.

At 10:28 AM 6/21/2005 -0400, Marty Humphrey wrote:

Hi Ian et. al., 

A very good question! ("can you define the goals of the BOF more precisely
other than "not WSRF"?) I sent this email in part to hear from the community
how "broad" they might like it to be. That is, we're being flexible. If
someone wants to talk about one of these specific topics, we will certainly
try our best to accommodate. 

Note that by default I believe the discussions will center around
WS-Transfer, WS-Enumeration, WS-Eventing, et. al. I will talk about my
team's use of WS-Transfer, WS-Enumeration, and WS-Eventing. I think we're in
a very good position to discuss the pros and cons of these specs as compared
with WSRF (as our project has implemented/used both). 

Let me answer the question in a different way. GGF Chair Mark Linesch said
recently: "Our approach with the OGSA architecture along with our
collaborative work on OGSA profiles is to: (1) describe 'the most traveled
paths through the forest' rather than to dictate that there is only one
path; and (2) to continue to highlight that multiple, overlapping paths may
not be in the interests of the industry over time"
( http://news.taborcommunications.com/msgget.jsp?mid=403500 <http://news.taborcommunications.com/msgget.jsp?mid=403500&xsl=story.xsl> &xsl=story.xsl)
Simply, we believe that there has been sufficient "hallway discussions" on
BOTH (1) and (2) that it makes good sense to gather people to discuss BOTH
of these topics in a realistic and productive way. 

- Marty

Marty Humphrey
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Virginia

________________________________________
From: Ian Foster [ mailto:foster at mcs.anl.gov] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 9:54 AM
To: Marty Humphrey; 'Ogsa-Wg'
Cc: 'Marty Humphrey'
Subject: Re: [ogsa-wg] OGSA-MWS-BOF at GGF14 on Tues June 28, noon-1:30

Marty, Steven:

It is of course feasible, in principle, to define many different profiles
for OGSA. E.g., one could build one on WS-Transfer and friends, one could
build one that uses a different construct than the WS-Addressing EPR to
address things, one could define one that uses JINI mechanisms, one could
define one that uses CORBA, one could define one that renames all of the
current WSRF and WS-Notification calls to be slightly different (oh wait,
that's the first in the list (-: ), etc.

Given the wide variety of possible alternative profiles, it would be helpful
for those like me who are considering attending the BOF to know what more
specifically what the goal of this work is going to be. The name doesn't
provide any information, other than to imply, perhaps, that the interfaces
on which the WSRF profile builds are not in some manner "minimal" and/or
"simple." I.e., can you define the goals of the BOF more precisely other
than "not WSRF"?

Regards -- Ian.

At 09:11 AM 6/21/2005 -0400, Marty Humphrey wrote:

Folks,

There have been a number of informal conversations lately about the
feasibility/value/implications of a possible non-WSRF-based profile for
OGSA. 

To bring all interested parties together at the same time, a BOF has been
scheduled for Tuesday June 28 noon-1:30 (unfortunately at the same time as
the EGA session, but there were no good times available). The agenda is
still being finalized, but we expect to broadly discuss the pros/cons of
such an effort, and, if the BOF attendees decide that such an effort would
be valuable, produce a concrete plan for the formation of a Working Group.

Here is the information that Steven Newhouse provided for the GGF
organizers:

"A BOF meeting to discuss the creation of a WG to define an OGSA Basic
Profile that builds upon a minimal set of simple web services. The output of
the group would be a document, similar in nature to the OGSA WSRF Basic
Profile that would allow OGSA services to be rendered using an alternative
set of WS specifications." 

I hope you can attend this (hopefully) productive and constructive session!

-- Marty and Steven

Marty Humphrey
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Virginia
_______________________________________________________________
Ian Foster                    www.mcs.anl.gov/~foster
Math & Computer Science Div.  Dept of Computer Science
Argonne National Laboratory   The University of Chicago    
Argonne, IL 60439, U.S.A.     Chicago, IL 60637, U.S.A.
Tel: 630 252 4619             Fax: 630 252 1997
        Globus Alliance, www.globus.org <http://www.globus.org/> 

_______________________________________________________________
Ian Foster                    www.mcs.anl.gov/~foster
Math & Computer Science Div.  Dept of Computer Science
Argonne National Laboratory   The University of Chicago    
Argonne, IL 60439, U.S.A.     Chicago, IL 60637, U.S.A.
Tel: 630 252 4619             Fax: 630 252 1997
        Globus Alliance, www.globus.org <http://www.globus.org/> 

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