[ogsa-wg] Information model profile doc for OGSA -- initial thoughts

[Fred Maciel]

Hi all,

I've been thinking of our guidance document on CIM profiles and how to
represent them on the OGSA spec. I don't have any answers, but at least
I got to the point where I have a lot of questions... :-) I'm hoping to
have your opinion on them in Monday's teleconference. So, let's start.

First of all, DMTF's document on how to write a profile has started a
one-month review inside the DMTF, so all DMTF members should have access
to it. The document is right on the top of the document review page:
http://www.dmtf.org/members/review/ . It's still DMTF confidential so I
can't post it here (sorry), but I'm taking into consideration since it
should be publicly available in a month as a preliminary document.
Meanwhile, the first slides of Andrea's presentation in the last
face-to-face (see
http://www-unix.gridforum.org/mail_archive/ogsa-wg/2005/08/msg00075.html
) are a good summary of the sections and contents in such a profile.

The DMTF document gives all the details on how to specify a profile,
includes a lot of experience (which allows us to avoid some pitfalls)
and saves us a lot of time. However, I think that it's an overkill for
individual OGSA specs (*), especially the ones that cover only one or
two classes.

So what I'm thinking for now is two levels:
(1) We create an information model profile per OGSA area (Execution
Management, Data, etc.), or, a profile for OGSA with sub-profiles for
each area. These can be part of an OGSA profile (i.e., some of the OGSA
profiles will include the corresponding information model profile).
These profiles act as integration points between the pieces of the
information models that each individual OGSA spec uses. The definition
of these information model profiles follows the guidelines of the DMTF
profile spec.
(2) Individual specs show the information models they use in a
lightweight way. The OGSA document on how to write an information model
profile (we need a title and a nickname for it. Suggestions?) is a
guideline on how to specify the information model on these specs.

Notice that Cisco's modeling tool (about to become open-source) will be
useful for both (1) and (2) above. It can even change the balance of
things above in subtle ways depending on how (and how much) it makes the
creation of a profile easier.

That's all for now. Opinions please.

Regards,

Fred Maciel
Hitachi America R&D

(*) By "individual OGSA specs" I mean specs like ByteIO, OGSA-BES, etc.,
not the roadmap, profile definition, guideline specs, the OGSA spec
itself, etc.