[ur-wg] Concall tomorrow

[Matt Ford]

Hi All,

I'd just like to summarize and comment on the changes between the
existing UR schema and Donal's proposal - this may put the UR2.0
discussion into context.

My previous email,
http://www-unix.gridforum.org/mail_archive/ur-wg/2006/05/msg00058.html
outlines what the current schema provides and what the spec aimed for.

I think the framework for the construction a record remains essentially
the same with some movement of elements and additional nice properties.

Usage Record Type
------------------

UR-WG: <xsd:complexType name="UsageRecordType">
Donal: <xsd:complexType name="UsageRecord">

The UR-WG has a more complex structure than that of Donal's as for
legacy reasons it defines a lot of fields for batch job accounting.  By
moving these out of this type definition and into a sub-class we hope to
avoid problems of semantics and scope for these elements.

The RecordStart and RecordEnd time elements Donal defines could have
used the UR-WG StartTime,EndTime definitions but it will have left the
semantics open.  I'm not sure they should be mandatory though see final
section.

List/Compound Records
----------------

UR-WG: <xsd:element name="UsageRecords">
Donal: <xsd:element name="CompoundUsageRecords">

The only major difference I notice here is the ability to have list of
lists in Donal's schema vs. a flat list of the UR-WG schema.

Atomic/Job Records
------------------

UR-WG: <xsd:element name="JobUsageRecord">
Donal: <xsd:element name="AtomicActivityUsageRecord">

The UR-WG defined JobUsageRecord but as it inherited the UsageRecordType
with all it's many elements it did not have any need to extend it in any
way.  Donal's AtomicActivityUsageRecord does move some of the elements
out the super type but I think still leaves us with the same problem.

AtomicActivity I feel is a generic label that could be applied to many
things.  By defining PeakNodes and AverageMemory aren't we still in our
heads thinking about compute jobs?  These labels could mean different
things in different contexts.  I could have used these in network
context rather than a batch system (and we go back to the scoping and
semantics comments).  Further I could have an atomic activity in some
sensor which the terms don't make sense.  You don't have to use them,
but you can't possible account for every scenario.

I would prefer to see a BatchUsageRecord type etc.  I still like
something like my previous example: in this "jobusage" means "batch job
usage".

<UsageRecord>
  <Base Properties>
    <RecordId/>
    <Accounting Period/>
  </Base Properties>
  <Grid Job>
    <JobUsageRecords>
       <JobUsageRecord/>
       ...
    </JobUsageRecords>
    <DataRecord/>
  </Grid Job>
</UsageRecord>


UserIdentity/RecordIdentity/AccountingPeriod
--------------------------------------------

>From UR-WG section 3:
-Record Identity uniquely defines a record in the usage record - it
doesn't identify how or what generated the report.
-UserId/GlobalUsername identify the user consuming the resource.

At present I generate a UsageRecord from a batch job not an accounting
period.  How do I fill in the mandatory RecordStartTime/EndTime in
Donal's schema in such a case (it doesn't make sense to I only have the
start-time and end-time of the job)?

How far down this road should we go?  It would be very handy for me to
query a RUS service and get back a UR that contains the accounting
period and summary info and the query that generated it and the list of
resources used and and and!.  Should this be part of the RUS spec though
rather than UR....should they be more closely coupled?

Matt.