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Protocol Message Path descriptions
by John Vollbrecht 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

This is a quick note to discuss path descriptions that might be received by a Provider Agent P1 when making a request. 1) simple path [A ->Z] A and Z are ports on the network known to (or findable by) P1 2) Multi-hop path [A -> B -> C -> Q ->Z] A, B, C, Q and Z are ports on the network know to (or findable by) P1 3) Strict -hop path [A -> B -> C -> D -> Z] A, B, C, D, and Z are ports on the network known to (or findable by) P1 Comment - I am not sure there is a difference between 2 and 3. I started thinking 2 was loose hop, 3 was strict hop. Now I think they are the same as far as the requestor is concerned. 4) Mid-chain path [A *-> B* -> C -> Z] A *-> B* -> C is outside the request but is included as part of the chain being requested There may be other path descriptions for requests. When responding to a request 1) simple path [ A<->Z] 2) multi-hop path [A <-> B <-> C <-> D <->Z] 3) Mid chain path [A*-> B *-> C <-> D <-> Z] Finally, the times that one uses a path 1) request instantiation of a path that has been reserved 2) request timed [phase 1] scheduling of resource 3) request commited [phase 2] scheduling of resource I don't know if there is a time for introducing this at the meeting Tuesday, but I submit this for possible discussion. John

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revised slides/ call notes
by John Vollbrecht 11 Nov '09

11 Nov '09

At our call today were Guy, Chin, Tomohiro, Jerry, Joan, Inder and my self. 1) we discussed the model of what we are now calling a NS Actor/ Component. We defined the components of this as NSI -- Network Service Interface Provider agent - provider side of NSI Requestor agent - requestor side of NSI NS Actor - set of actors that perform act as a whole. Includes one or more NS agents/ 0 or 1 provider agents, 0 to N requestor agents Actor may be renamed Component -- to be discussed in future We agreed on these names based on Joan's description of web services definitions. Joan will provide a writeup and pointer(s) to this for the doc. Attached is a modified ppt that includes these names as I understand them. This is based on a version I got from Joan and modified a bit more. Comments and corrections please. 2) we discussed in the PPTs I sent the role of aggregation/ coordination module. This requests resources from other agents and returns them with appropriate parameters to the requestor. The resource returned by the Provider agent includes all the resources aggregated by the aggregation/coordination module. 3) we discussed the diagram that Chin sent out with functional modules. There was a lot of discussion about this, and Chin suggested that we focus in the short term on defining elements and put the diagram on hold till we get farther on this. People liked the concept of the document and that it helped discussion, but now needs to be revised. Every one should send comments to Chin on this. -- some comments I remember: a) Part of Authentication and authorization may need to be part of NSI interface. Other parts may be in RMM agent and in Actor support modules. b) aggregation/ coordination module should be added to the diagram c) message interpretation/ analysis should probably be included somewhere - the concept that there might be simple/ loose/ strict requests. There will be a protocol meeting at SC at 2PM PT Tuesday next week. The next regular call will be Wed Nov 25 at 9ET. John

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Interim meeting to start NSI Protocol Specification
by Inder Monga 11 Nov '09

11 Nov '09

Dear All, As discussed during OGF meeting at Banff, we are planning to meet at SC to start discussions on the protocol specification. The time proposed to have this meeting is Tuesday, November 17th from 2 - 4 pm. Details on where we are going to meet will be sent out earlier next week. Please reserve this time in your calendar and look forward to having a good start on this document. We are trying to organize a room and bridge/skype for people who are not planning to attend SC - but I won't have confirmation till later. Best Regards, Inder p.s. We can decide on additional meeting times at the Tuesday meeting if there is sufficient interest.

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authority and delegation of authority in NS (Actor?)
by John Vollbrecht 11 Nov '09

11 Nov '09

Attached is a two page ppt. The first modifies Tomohiro's a little - and uses names from Joan. The main modification other than names is that it removes the capability advertisement module. The idea is that a single module provides "services" which may be called from outside or integrated in the actor itself. We need to describe what these services do for the Actor, but not how they do it. In my mind these are services that Chin has started to enumerate (except the resource coordination module). The Aggregation/ coordination module in the pic is Chin's coordination and Tomohiro' aggregation module -- I think they are the same. -- any thoughts? The second shows resource delegation of authority (for a particular resource. Note that the local RMM agent is the ultimate authority for resources controlled by the RMM. Given that the RMM agent is part of the Actor, the Actor is the ultimate authority for all resources controlled by the RMM. Resources requested by the NSI are delegated from the remote NSA and may be redelegated (along with the local resources) to a requesting agent. This, btw, is very similar if not identical to what in my understanding the ORCA and GENI frameworks do. -- thoughts or questions?

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interim call tomorrow
by John Vollbrecht 04 Nov '09

04 Nov '09

We will have an interim call tomorrow. My proposed agenda is to talk about work under way, I suggest 1. Joan's slides modified from OGF 2. Review block diagram - from Tomohiro slides at OGF 3. Go over status -- my view of where we are is below. I am hoping we can make some progress before SC, and then have sections 2,3, and 4.b, 4.h, 4.j. and part of section 5 available as candidate sections for the recomendation -- by the end of the year. We can talk about whether this seems possible. My view if status - please comment -- I am thinking that we need to make some progress on actual document in the next few weeks. Progress for me will be to have some sections in place that are ready for detailed editing. Section 1 - Summary and Abstract [to be done] Section 2 - Context and Motivation I think we are close on the first part section 2 the context and motivation. I keep thinking of some changes to it as I go along, but I think it is ok as a starting point for editing. We are planning a second part of section 2 that describes service and transport planes and their relation to other planes. I believe that Inder will propose something for that. Section 3 - Concepts and Terminology We have documentation that covers most of this. However, in my view, after rereading in a couple times, it needs to be revised to correspond with the NSA model that we came up with in Banff, particularly the concepts of Agent Selection and Aggregation, and the naming of NSI server and client model. I think we should talk this through on the call to be sure we all agree and I can rework the section. I believe that the transport terms described in the second part of this section are ok for a version to be edited. I will modify the order of some of this section when I do the first part. Section 4 -- Architecture (details) 4.a Services offerred over NSI [hold till after 4.b] 4.b Block diagram of requestor and service agents This will build on diagrams from Tomohiro at OGF. Chin has offerred to provide a first cut at all modules. Many are are interested in helping to define this, including Chin, Radek, Tomohiro, Joan and others]. I believe the hope is that discussion on this can occur on the skype chat as well as on calls and email. I think that this is key to defining much of the rest of the document. The blocks help define what is done by an agent, and allow the agent to use interfaces other than NSI by some blocks. It also helps explain the recursive nature of calls to other NSAs. It also helps to clarify what a request needs to contain. This is a NSA architecture section that provides context for the NSI interface 4.c Domain interaction -- As I think about this, which I believe Tomohiro proposed, I think it is meant to define what a domain is, especially relative to a NSA. I am thinking this might better be called "recursive NSAs" or hierarchy imposed by aggregation module, or something else. Any thoughts about that? 4.e Responsibiliy division between Management, Control, Transport, and Service Plane. I am not sure how this will be different that section 2.2, except more detailed 4.f Security and Accounting (I have volunteered for a first cut at this, but not till earlier sections are farther along) 4.g. Deployment [of multiple NSAs] architecture [hold till earlier sections done] 4.h Messaging interaction [ Tomohiro has volunteered to take the lead on this] two phase commit (required or not), synchronous / asynchronous message triggers path description in reservations - I will take initial lead on this 4.i Request and Response messaging characteristics Resources (objects) and parameters, and their topology [Guy] Section 5 Imlementation and Deployment frameworks Overview [Joan, Tomohiro, John, Inder] Using NSI in othe models - GMPLS, GRID, GENI [John, Joan] Application examples of NSI - [KDDI, LHC, CoUniverse, other?]

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call info 9ET Today
by John Vollbrecht 04 Nov '09

04 Nov '09

Sorry - I forgot to include the call info - Call infoCall: +1-734-615-7474 (Please use if you do not pay for Long Distance) or +1-866-411-0013 (toll free US/Canada Only) Enter access code: 0155180 John

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Issue tracker
by Guy Roberts 03 Nov '09

03 Nov '09

Hello all, Gridforge has a web-based issue tracking tool which can be used as an issue ticket system. I have decided to try using this as it should provide easy access for all participants without the usual document version sharing problems. I have entered the current NSI issue log into the tracker - you can find this here: http://forge.gridforum.org/sf/tracker/do/listArtifacts/projects.nsi-wg/trac… Tracker has some useful filtering functions for searching by category or open/closed status. Tracker is open for all to access and editing is available to anyone with an NSI account (email me to be made a member of the NSI gridforge group). Any feedback on whether this will work for the group would be appreciated. Guy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Guy Roberts, Ph.D Network Engineering & Planning DANTE - www.dante.net<http://www.dante.net/> Tel: +44 (0)1223 371 316 City House, 126-130 Hills Road Cambridge, CB2 1PQ, UK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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skype IM group
by Guy Roberts 28 Oct '09

28 Oct '09

Hi All, We have created a Skype IM group for discussing NSI issues. The intention is to try Skype IM based meetings, meeting times will be announced on this email list in the normal way. The skype group is called NSI-wg and will appear on your conversation tab once you receive your first message from the group. You can select the 'save group in contacts' button for future use. For more details see this link - http://www.skype.com/allfeatures/group-im/ If you would like to be added to this skype group please let one of the co-chairs, Chin, Joan or Radek know and we can add you to the group. Guy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Guy Roberts, Ph.D Network Engineering & Planning DANTE - www.dante.net<http://www.dante.net/> Tel: +44 (0)1223 371 316 City House, 126-130 Hills Road Cambridge, CB2 1PQ, UK ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Notes from Call today
by John Vollbrecht 28 Oct '09

28 Oct '09

Present on the call today - Chin, Joan, Tomohiro, Radek, Guy, Inder and myself. We decided to create a skype group to discuss things online. Tomohiro has created a group and Guy (I think) is planning to send a note describing how to join the group. We discussed meeting times. It is very difficult to have meetings with people around the world. We decided to stick with 9AM ET for meetings which is 11PM Tokyo, 6AM California, and 3PM in Central European time. We also agreed to limit the calls to 90 minutes. We agreed to tentatively have meetings every Wed, one wed with specific topics to discuss in detail, the next wed to discuss status, open issues, interactions with other groups. We discussed the Table of Contents for the Architecture document. I modified the doc very slightly and added people assignments to many of the topics. If you were not on the call and are interested in participating in developing a particular section, please let me know. For next Wed, Chin and Radek and Tomohiro and will have a first cut at a NSA block diagram which will be discussed on the call. Also, Joan will clean up his slides with Tomohiro and sent them to the group and these will also be discussed next Wed. Guy discussed the list of issues which he sent out prior to the meeting. A number of suggestion on how to structure the list were made and Guy is planning to move the list to spreadsheet and add some fields that will make it easier to manage and to find the state of specific issues and types of issues. We also discussed a number of the issues themselves and Guy will update these based on the discussion. Some of these issues will be discusssed as part of status - general meetings, and some may be scheduled as topics for "specific" meetings. Guy will send out the revised list when he gets it modified. --- Once the skype group is established it may be possible to solve a number of these issues on the group. It will be a good experiment at any rate. - any comments, additions, corrections John

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Call tomorrow 9ET 2CET
by John Vollbrecht 28 Oct '09

28 Oct '09

We will have a call tomorrow at 9 ET which for this week is 5 hours different than CET. I attach a draft table of contents for the architecture document.which I propose be the first order of business tomorrow. Call infoCall: +1-734-615-7474 (Please use if you do not pay for Long Distance) or +1-866-411-0013 (toll free US/Canada Only) Enter access code: 0155180 proposed agenda - 1. review proposed table of contents 2. review list of issues sent out by Guy We will start to farm out issues and sections to people/ groups to work on if possible. John

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