Hi all, Last year we have had a few discussions on identifiers in the NML-WG, as well as in the GLIF. There have been two more or less conflicting solutions. Nevertheless, I hope to reach consensus on a way forward at the coming OGF meeting, which coincides with the GLIF meeting. Let me try to summarise the two points of view: 1) The theoretical view: an identifier is simply a unique string. No information at all should be implied in it. "sdimfsdhdsjkjd39n34n58" is great, even more if there is a good method to make it unique. E.g. "mydomain.net:sdimfsdhdsjkjd39n34n58". The great thing is that you can change the properties of the thing without changing the identifier. 2) The practical view: we should re-use the NURN (network identifiers) as used in the perfSONAR software suite, e.g. "urn:ogf:network:domain=mydomain.net:device=mydevice:port=4:link=1". This conveniently has all the attributes inside, very easy to parse. No need to make it more complex. I have been an advocate of the first point of view, Martin has been a vocal advocate of the second view. Of course, both view have their merit. Jeff proposed to make the order of items in the perfSONAR identifier fixed, so at least a string-wise comparison is possible between two identifiers. Freek said he could live if the first part of the identifier implies the originating domain. I wonder if we can make progress by reaching consensus on the following statements: - The NURN is not an identifier in the formal sense, it is a couple of properties that together uniquely identify something. - That said, sometimes it may be overkill to create a special identifier, but it is good enough to identify something by it's properties, as the NURN does. (and perhaps more controversial:) - The identifier that is sent to external parties consists of a domain part, identifying the originating domain, and a unique string part. Whilst this string may contain more properties, other parties do not need to interpret the meaning of this string. - As the NURN is formally defined in the OGF (I presume it is in the NM-WG), if the NML-WG deviates from this format, the NML-WG has an obligation to also define a practical transition strategy which does not suddenly break things. Regards, Freek