[ur-wg] Aggregate Accounting

[Rosario Michael Piro]

Hi Matthew, hi all!

Matthew Ford wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I hope you have (or have had) a good face-to-face meeting.  On the conference
> call previously we have discussed aggregate accounting and made moves to move
> it out of scope.
> 
> I attach below, a valid and well formed record, using the definitions from
> section 10 of the spec.
> 
>  <UsageRecord>
>     <RecordId urwg:recordId="foo"/>
>     <UserIdentity>
>        <ds:KeyInfo xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"
> xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
>         <X509Data>
>           <X509SubjectName>cn=matt ford</X509SubjectName>
>         </X509Data>
>       </ds:KeyInfo>
>     </UserIdentity>
>     <StartTime urwg:description="accountperiod">2003-06-16T08:24:32Z</StartTime>
>     <EndTime urwg:description="accountperiod">2006-05-08T10:34:58Z</EndTime>
>     <CPUDuration urwg:description="sum over accountperiod for
> UserIdentity">234234324325</CPUDuration>
>     <WallDuration urwg:description="sum over accountperiod for
> UserIdentity">23423434</WallDuration>
>     <Status urwg:description="all complete jobs over accounting period for
> UserIdentity">completed</Status>
>   </UsageRecord>
> 
> This I think certainly constitutes a valid aggregate record.  It would require a
> farily significant rewrite to make this _not_ be allowed.  I'm thinking of using
> something like this to report total cpuduration for some of my users.
> 
> Is this against the spirit of the clarification we are trying to make, should
> this be something that is allowed?  The move away from aggregation is a big
> one...or have I been too liberal in my interpretation (but I'd argue against
> this)

I think a usage record should be explicitly declared to be aggregate 
(how should be discussed), otherwise we would easily undermine all 
standardization efforts. How does for example an arbitrary 
implementation of the Resource Usage Service (RUS), that uses the UR, 
realize that your UR is meant to be aggregate. It would most probably 
(and usually should) interpret the StartTime as the start time of job 
execution and the End Time as stop time of job execution of a single 
job. It wouldn't understand urwg:description="accountperiod" as modifier 
of the meaning of Start and EndTime. Of course you might customize the 
behaviour of your RUS (or whatever service you use for accounting), but 
that would make it a non-standard solution.

But I agree that an aggregate format would be most useful. If it will 
not be defined by the UR-WG then most probably most Grid 
environments/projects will define their own aggregate format. This as 
well would risk to undermine the standardization efforts.

Before declaring an aggregate UR out of scope, we should at least start 
(via the mailing list) a discussion on what would be necessary (new 
elements? Or simply an additional attribute 'urwg:scope="aggregate"' to 
some of the elements? To which? Allow multiple job IDs for aggregate 
URs? etc.

But I think this would be a longer process and wouldn't lead to quick 
results. The improvement of the current UR for single jobs will (and 
should) have the priority I guess.

Cheers,

Rosario.

> 
> Matt.
> 


-- 
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    Rosario Piro (piro at to.infn.it)
     http://www.to.infn.it/~piro/
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Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
Sezione di Torino
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National Insitute for Nuclear Physics
Section of Turin, Italy
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