[ogsa-wg] [rm-wg] Glossary terms for Thursday's call (statedefinition)

[Natale, Bob]

Hi,
 
I'm mainly an appreciative lurker here, so apologies in advance if this
comment fails to add anything useful to the discussion:
 
In my experience (mostly telecom), we have sometimes used "Provisioned"
to indicate the state in which an entity has been "configured for
initial operation and awaiting activation (i.e., being put into active
service)".  "Configuration" is then the changes (if any) that are made
to the entity between activation and "retirement" (pulled from
service).  (An entity may go through multiple activation/retirement
cycles over its service lifetime, and the final configuration at a
retirement might be the provisioned state at the next activation.)
 
Cheers,
BobN

________________________________

	From: rm-wg-bounces at ogf.org [mailto:rm-wg-bounces at ogf.org] On
Behalf Of Michael Behrens
	Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 8:54 PM
	To: Treadwell, Jem
	Cc: rm-wg at ogf.org; ogsa-wg; Donal K. Fellows
	Subject: Re: [rm-wg] [ogsa-wg] Glossary terms for Thursday's
call (statedefinition)
	
	
	Most insightful.  Would the available attributes vary directly
with the lifecycle state of the resource?  Or would there  simply be a
way to categorize attributes and might this affect future resource
specifications?
	
	Treadwell, Jem wrote: 

		Paul/Donal/All,
		Thanks for the comments, and sorry to be slow in
responding - I'm not
		able to work on this quite as much these days :(
		Now that I've taken time to read Paul's comment and
Donal's response a
		little more carefully, I think Donal makes an excellent
point - I would
		expect that an entity would exist only after it has
been configured. Its
		configuration attributes would *contribute* to its
state, but would not
		be a part of it unless the details are associated with
(*maybe*
		contained within) the entity, are visible to some
external observer
		(possibly a debugger), and might change.
		I'm happy to add a little more explanation in the
definition if anyone
		thinks it would be helpful. For example, at the end of
Para 1 I could
		add: 
		  Configuration attributes typically affect an entity's
initial state,
		  but would not be considered to be part of the state
unless they
		  can be changed during the entity's lifetime, and thus
affect its
		  behavior.
		Other suggestions welcome!
		- Jem
		
		
		  

			-----Original Message-----
			From: ogsa-wg-bounces at ogf.org
[mailto:ogsa-wg-bounces at ogf.org] On
			    

		Behalf
		  

			Of Donal K. Fellows
			Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 4:38 AM
			To: Strong, Paul
			Cc: ogsa-wg; rm-wg at ogf.org
			Subject: Re: [ogsa-wg] Glossary terms for
Thursday's call
			
			Strong, Paul wrote:
			    

				Within the RM-WG we have split
attributes into configuration
				      

		attributes
		  

				and state attributes.  Configuration
attributes to some degree
				      

		define
		  

				behavior, defining or constraining the
set of allowed states, as
				      

		well as
		  

				the possible values of state attributes
and allowed transitions
				      

		between
		  

				states.  Clearly configuration
attributes are "interesting", and
				      

		thus
		  

				according to the definition below they
would be considered part of
				      

		the
		  

				state.  I'm not sure that this is the
case.
				      

			An argument that I made during the call (and
which it might have been
			nice to have delved into in more detail if we'd
had a few days instead
			of 15 minutes!) is that an altered
configuration creates a different
			resource/stateful entity[*], but an altered
state is something that is
			expected during the normal working lifetime of
a resource and does not
			change the fundamental nature of that resource.
That is, a change of
			config is qualitatively different to a change
of state, even if both
			    

		are
		  

			(represented as) attributes.
			
			In general, there are loads of definitions of
state (I've got a
			background which leads me to regard it as
really a partial function
			whose domain is the cartesian product of time
and names for "stateful"
			things) but they're just different ways of
looking at the same thing.
			The good aspects of the current definition are
that it is observable
			    

		and
		  

			changes in it are events, things which are not
implicit in the
			    

		standard
		  

			CS definitions of the term and yet are very
useful for grids.
			
			Donal.
			[* As you can tell, I've lost track of what
kind of thing contains
			    

		such
		  

			    attributes. I know *I* think of them as
resources, but that
			    

		doesn't
		  

			    make me right. :-) ]
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	-- 
	Michael Behrens
	R2AD, LLC
	(571) 594-3008 (cell)
	(703) 714-0442 (land)

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