[ogsa-wg] RE: GGF/OGSA standards for hierarchical namespaces

[Christopher Jordan]

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(I don't seem to have any record of minutes having been taken or sent  
out for this session - if I'm wrong or just missed an e-mail in the  
endless shuffle of my inbox, feel free to correct me, but this  
document may be taken as a poor-man's minutes, rambling, incoherent,  
and just plain wrong though it may be in parts - I was calling in and  
so wasn't always able to catch all of the discussion.)

First, I'd like to again thank all the participants in the e-mail and  
the F2F discussions for helping us to move this forward.

Regarding the F2F Naming session, I think the RNS/WS-Directory  
portion was a very productive discussion, and it certainly seemed to  
me that there is general agreement on the need for a refactored or  
decomposed version of RNS, as well as agreement on the general  
components that will be required. I will refer to the portion of the  
re-factored RNS that provides the POSIX directory-like functionality  
RNS-Directory, for lack of a better term at this point.  In fact, the  
sense I got was that not only is it generally agreed that this type  
of thing is needed, but that it is needed as soon as possible; I  
certainly feel this way, since much of the work of the GFS-WG should  
ideally consist of the definition of a "profile" for GFS usage of RNS- 
Directory.

Mark Morgan made it abundantly clear that WS-Directory is not  
currently being offered as a proposed GGF standard document, but is  
merely intended to provide a somewhat simpler, and in fact quite  
minimal, example of a hierarchically structured set of human-readable  
names which are associated with XML documents containing at least an  
EPR and, as of the most recent version, arbitrary XML, as the entry  
document definition includes an "{xsd:any} *" component. I, for one,  
feel that WS-Directory will be a a valuable reference point in the  
development of the directory service component of RNS 2.0, or  
whatever it ends up being called.

Initial action items coming out of the discussion were that Mark  
Morgan and Manuel Pereira were to do some communication to try and  
get synchronized on at least some initial ideas about what might need  
to come out of RNS and how it might need to be changed in order to  
get to this magical future invention I call RNS-Directory. I've  
offered to help in whatever capacity I can, including arranging for  
mailing lists and conference calls if necessary, in addition to  
offering my opinions, which by this point is probably assumed ;-).

My personal feeling was that the most difficult issue to resolve was  
the question of where the re-factoring effort should live and how it  
should proceed; , but it seemed to be generally agreed that GFS-WG is  
too far down the GGF hierarchy to be responsible for something that,  
as someone put it most appropriately (sorry for not recognizing your  
voice), needs the level of visibility associated with being at the  
OGSA-* level. At the same time, Mark Morgan suggested that perhaps  
OGSA-Naming wasn't necessarily a perfect fit for this effort, as  
there isn't quite the right overlap with the efforts and individuals  
currently in OGSA-Naming. The last suggestion I heard clearly in toto  
was that it should be "officially" part of OGSA-Naming, but that it  
may need separate conference calls, GGF sessions, and other devices  
to maintain at least some separation from the mainstream OGSA-Naming  
work. Manuel explained to me, as a relative newcomer, the original  
agreement that the GFS-WG would be responsible for development of  
RNS, and that OGSA-Naming would then take over maintenance of it once  
it had become a GFD, and something like this  still seems like a good  
idea, as long as we can maintain the required level of visibility.

I'd appreciate it if someone who was there could let us all know  
what, if any, final decisions were made regarding how this process  
will proceed.

I haven't had a chance to look at WS-Enumeration, but it's on my  
reading list - at the least, it should be useful in thinking about  
how to integrate the directory work with separate and more generally  
applicable iteration or enumeration standards.

Thanks,

On Apr 5, 2006, at 12:53 PM, Dave Berry wrote:

> Hi Chris,
>
> Thanks for this note.  I hope the F2F discussion is productive.
>
> I will repeat my suggestion that the naming team should look at
> WS-Enumeration to see if it, or an extension thereof, satisfies the
> requirements for an iteration interface.  I have no idea whether it  
> does
> meet those requirements but we should take a look.  This is especially
> true given the MS/IBM/HP/Intel WS white paper, which has WS- 
> Enumeration
> in at the bottom layer.
>
> Another question I've had raised to me is whether we can use WSRF/WSRT
> to handle the properties associated with entries in the directory.  I
> personally don't see how this would work, but given the context we're
> working in it would be helpful to establish what relationship  
> exists, if
> any.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Dave.
>

- ----------------------------------------------------
Chris Jordan
HPC Systems Engineer
High End Computing Systems Group
San Diego Supercomputer Center
ctjordan at sdsc.edu
858.534.8347

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