Re: [DAIS-WG] Stepping Down as Co-Chair
Norman, As I have said before, many thanks for all your hard work and patient leadership Malcolm -----Original Message----- From: dais-wg-bounces@ogf.org [mailto:dais-wg-bounces@ogf.org] On Behalf Of Norman Paton Sent: 04 October 2006 21:34 To: dais-wg@ggf.org Subject: [DAIS-WG] Stepping Down as Co-Chair This is just to let the group know that, as the first 3 WS-DAI specifications have now reached Provisional Recommendation status, I propose to step down as Co-Chair of the DAIS-WG. I have enjoyed my time working in the GGF to help bring these into being, but always intended not to retain this responsibility beyond the publication of the specifications. I will continue to participate in the interoperability testing activity, but don't plan to contribute directly to the emerging RDF realisation. I hope that, in due course, someone participating in the development of the RDF realisation will take on a co-chair role. As a brief indulgence, here are some highs and lows. Highs: working together with a diverse and interesting group of people - I hope to retain contact with a range of folks met through the GGF; being part of a wider community trying to do something challenging but worthwhile; visiting Toronto, Edinburgh, Chicago, Tokyo, Seattle, Berlin, Hawaii, Brussels and Athens; finally seeing the specifications in print. Lows: winter in Toronto; the demise of OGSI; the demise of WSRF; intercontinental travel in economy; jet lag. All the best, Norman -- dais-wg mailing list dais-wg@ogf.org http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dais-wg
Dear all, I would first join Malcolm Atkinson in thanking Norman Paton and the DAIS-WG main contributors for all the work that has been led and done until the publication of DAIS specifications as GGF (should it be henceforth called: OGF?) recommandation documents. Nevertheless a piece of Norman Paton's sentences disturbed me a little: "a demise of WSRF". What should I (we?) understand? Would WSRF specifications be overshadowed by "simple" WS standards? For the rest, WSRF seems to me too specific for grid services to be given up -I think this observation looks obvious for anyone concerned with grids. To my knowledge, WSRF still goes on (version 1.2 raised on April 2006). One of our current leading projects is based on an implementation of WS-DAI and its relational realization (according the latest specifications) over the WSRF.NET framework (thanks to Marty Humphrey and his team from the University of Virginia). Should we definitely change our framework foundations? I hope we would not have to do so. Thanks for your clarification. My apologizes in case this message is sent (or felt to be sent) to an inappropriate place -although I believe many people would be interested in the WSRF status. With regards, Ny Haingo Andrianarisoa.
Dear M. Andrianarisoa: I believe that Norman was speaking to the "convergence roadmap" that some of the big industrial players (Microsoft, IBM, HP, Sun, etc.) produced recently, which aims to reconcile the differences between WSRF/WS-Notification (the OASIS standard) and WS-Transfer/WS-Man/WS-Eventing (Microsoft and friends). The good news is that the proposed WS-ResourceTransfer specification (NOT in a standards body, but published in draft form) provides the essential WSRF functionality, and apparently has the backing of some major players: http://ianfoster.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/wsresourcetrans.html These developments are frustrating for those developing standards, as they mean that revisions will likely be needed down the road. (Although the impact of these changes can be overstated: all standards evolve over time, including fundamental ones like WSDL.) For those developing software, I assert that these developments are not important. People building services recognize, as you do, that there are big advantages to using pre-packaged implementations of state management and access functions, for which there are now good implementations from GT4, WSRF.NET, etc., rather than building their own from scratch. That's certainly our experience, and the experience of the many others that work with GT4. If WSRT gains traction, then at some point it will likely be advantageous to update the operations used for state access. But that will probably be a couple of years, and software like GT4 will make that easy to do. (We've learned things about such transformations over the years.) Regards -- Ian. At 04:33 PM 10/5/2006 +0200, Ny Haingo Andrianarisoa wrote:
Dear all,
I would first join Malcolm Atkinson in thanking Norman Paton and the DAIS-WG main contributors for all the work that has been led and done until the publication of DAIS specifications as GGF (should it be henceforth called: OGF?) recommandation documents.
Nevertheless a piece of Norman Paton's sentences disturbed me a little: "a demise of WSRF". What should I (we?) understand? Would WSRF specifications be overshadowed by "simple" WS standards? For the rest, WSRF seems to me too specific for grid services to be given up -I think this observation looks obvious for anyone concerned with grids.
To my knowledge, WSRF still goes on (version 1.2 raised on April 2006). One of our current leading projects is based on an implementation of WS-DAI and its relational realization (according the latest specifications) over the WSRF.NET framework (thanks to Marty Humphrey and his team from the University of Virginia). Should we definitely change our framework foundations? I hope we would not have to do so.
Thanks for your clarification. My apologizes in case this message is sent (or felt to be sent) to an inappropriate place -although I believe many people would be interested in the WSRF status.
With regards, Ny Haingo Andrianarisoa. -- dais-wg mailing list dais-wg@ogf.org http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dais-wg
_______________________________________________________________ Ian Foster -- Weblog: http://ianfoster.typepad.com Computation Institute: www.ci.uchicago.edu & www.ci.anl.gov Argonne: MCS/221, 9700 S. Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439 Chicago: Rm 405, 5640 S. Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637 Tel: +1 630 252 4619 --- Globus Alliance: www.globus.org
Dear Mr Foster, I thank you for your clarification about the "convergence roadmap" and for your very interesting report available on your mentioned blog about the WS-RT specification advance. As we oriented to a .NET-based WSRF implementation, we expected to validate the connection with grids based on other frameworks (as GT4) in a "second" step. We acknowledge that interoperability is essential -as many people mentioned- for a durable efficiency and useability. We will look at WS-RT specification if (when) this latter plays a bigger role. For the moment, I believe that we will go on improving our tools for database access on a grid because DAIS combined with WSRF seems to our eyes to be a modular solution for an easier evolution (according to our perspective). Best regards, Ny Haingo. Le 06/10/2006 12:01, Ian Foster a écrit :
Dear M. Andrianarisoa:
I believe that Norman was speaking to the "convergence roadmap" that some of the big industrial players (Microsoft, IBM, HP, Sun, etc.) produced recently, which aims to reconcile the differences between WSRF/WS-Notification (the OASIS standard) and WS-Transfer/WS-Man/WS-Eventing (Microsoft and friends). The good news is that the proposed WS-ResourceTransfer specification (NOT in a standards body, but published in draft form) provides the essential WSRF functionality, and apparently has the backing of some major players:
http://ianfoster.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/wsresourcetrans.html
These developments are frustrating for those developing standards, as they mean that revisions will likely be needed down the road. (Although the impact of these changes can be overstated: all standards evolve over time, including fundamental ones like WSDL.)
For those developing software, I assert that these developments are not important. People building services recognize, as you do, that there are big advantages to using pre-packaged implementations of state management and access functions, for which there are now good implementations from GT4, WSRF.NET, etc., rather than building their own from scratch. That's certainly our experience, and the experience of the many others that work with GT4. If WSRT gains traction, then at some point it will likely be advantageous to update the operations used for state access. But that will probably be a couple of years, and software like GT4 will make that easy to do. (We've learned things about such transformations over the years.)
Regards -- Ian.
At 04:33 PM 10/5/2006 +0200, Ny Haingo Andrianarisoa wrote:
Dear all,
I would first join Malcolm Atkinson in thanking Norman Paton and the DAIS-WG main contributors for all the work that has been led and done until the publication of DAIS specifications as GGF (should it be henceforth called: OGF?) recommandation documents.
Nevertheless a piece of Norman Paton's sentences disturbed me a little: "a demise of WSRF". What should I (we?) understand? Would WSRF specifications be overshadowed by "simple" WS standards? For the rest, WSRF seems to me too specific for grid services to be given up -I think this observation looks obvious for anyone concerned with grids.
To my knowledge, WSRF still goes on (version 1.2 raised on April 2006). One of our current leading projects is based on an implementation of WS-DAI and its relational realization (according the latest specifications) over the WSRF.NET framework (thanks to Marty Humphrey and his team from the University of Virginia). Should we definitely change our framework foundations? I hope we would not have to do so.
Thanks for your clarification. My apologizes in case this message is sent (or felt to be sent) to an inappropriate place -although I believe many people would be interested in the WSRF status.
With regards, Ny Haingo Andrianarisoa. -- dais-wg mailing list dais-wg@ogf.org http://www.ogf.org/mailman/listinfo/dais-wg
_______________________________________________________________ Ian Foster -- Weblog: http://ianfoster.typepad.com http://ianfoster.typepad.com/ Computation Institute: www.ci.uchicago.edu http://www.ci.uchicago.edu/ & www.ci.anl.gov http://www.ci.anl.gov/ Argonne: MCS/221, 9700 S. Cass Ave, Argonne, IL 60439 Chicago: Rm 405, 5640 S. Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637 Tel: +1 630 252 4619 --- Globus Alliance: www.globus.org http://www.globus.org/
Hi, It's interesting to hear that you are working on an implementation of the relational realisation. Would you be interested in participating in an interoperability testing activity for the specification? Such an activity is likely to follow the approach outlined for the XML Realisation in: http://www.ggf.org/documents/GFD.77.pdf There is another implementation being developed by the OGSA-DAI project at EPCC in Edinburgh, and there was an earlier implementation developed at IBM Hursley. With respect to WSRF, the evolution of standards for representing state in web services is outlined in: http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/dw/webservices/Harmonizat... The basic lesson (from my perspective) is that this is a space in which agreement has been slow to emerge, and that as a result one has to conduct specification, software design and implementation activities on the assumption that current proposals will be superseded. The WS-DAI specifications were designed to be conservative in their use of WSRF. The result of this conservative stance is that use of WSRF is optional in the specifications, and where WSRF is used, this makes little difference to the functionality of the service provided. I don't think it's easy to provide advice for ongoing development projects that are currently using WSRF as to how to proceed, but all should proceed on the basis that WSRF will not be around for ever. As Malcolm describes, the OGSA-DAI team has architected their software in such a way as to allow multiple web service interfaces to be developed relatively easily in a thin layer. If you do use WSRF, you should certainly consider a similar approach. However, this approach helps the providers of a service and not the users of a service to cope with change. In the WS-DAI specifications, abstract names are mandatory in message bodies; this means that message bodies are the same whether or not you use WSRF. This looks like quite a good design decision with hindsight! By contrast, I think it is easy to provide advice to standards activities as to what use they should make of WSRF or its emerging descendents! ;-) Regards, Norman
Dear Norman Paton, I thank you for your proposal about an interoperability testing activity. Our first step projet aims to supply some data access tools and services on grids based on DAIS specs and WSRF.NET implementation. As soon as we reach an enough stable state for our development, we will highly consider your proposal and contact you back. I will also take a deeper look into the multiple web services interfaces design you mentioned about the OGSA-DAI project. I am absolutely convinced you are right about the interest of such an adoption. Time missed till now for such a various and efficient approach; we will attempt to solve it. Thanks again for your advices. With regards, Ny Haingo. Le 06/10/2006 12:12, Norman Paton a écrit :
Hi,
It's interesting to hear that you are working on an implementation of the relational realisation. Would you be interested in participating in an interoperability testing activity for the specification? Such an activity is likely to follow the approach outlined for the XML Realisation in:
http://www.ggf.org/documents/GFD.77.pdf
There is another implementation being developed by the OGSA-DAI project at EPCC in Edinburgh, and there was an earlier implementation developed at IBM Hursley.
With respect to WSRF, the evolution of standards for representing state in web services is outlined in:
http://download.boulder.ibm.com/ibmdl/pub/software/dw/webservices/Harmonizat...
The basic lesson (from my perspective) is that this is a space in which agreement has been slow to emerge, and that as a result one has to conduct specification, software design and implementation activities on the assumption that current proposals will be superseded. The WS-DAI specifications were designed to be conservative in their use of WSRF. The result of this conservative stance is that use of WSRF is optional in the specifications, and where WSRF is used, this makes little difference to the functionality of the service provided.
I don't think it's easy to provide advice for ongoing development projects that are currently using WSRF as to how to proceed, but all should proceed on the basis that WSRF will not be around for ever. As Malcolm describes, the OGSA-DAI team has architected their software in such a way as to allow multiple web service interfaces to be developed relatively easily in a thin layer. If you do use WSRF, you should certainly consider a similar approach. However, this approach helps the providers of a service and not the users of a service to cope with change. In the WS-DAI specifications, abstract names are mandatory in message bodies; this means that message bodies are the same whether or not you use WSRF. This looks like quite a good design decision with hindsight!
By contrast, I think it is easy to provide advice to standards activities as to what use they should make of WSRF or its emerging descendents! ;-)
Regards, Norman
participants (4)
-
Ian Foster
-
Malcolm Atkinson
-
Norman Paton
-
Ny Haingo Andrianarisoa