Hello Guy, Inder, Tomohiro, cc: NML and NSI groups Last week Roman Łapacz (PSNC) took Jeroen's AutoGOLE network description and turned it into an XML format. (Thanks Roman!) In that process, we discovered a few differences how AutoGOLE and NML describe a network model. The main differences are: * NML links and ports are unidirectional, AutoGOLE links are bidirectional * NML uses links and ports to describe network connections (a proposal to describe only links, not the ports was not followed up), AutoGOLE only describes the ports (the links are described as connectedTo between the ports, but have no identifier of their own) Of course there are some commonalities: * Both implementations focus on logical connections, not physical connections. * Both implementations have provisionings to ensure a layer of abstraction in case attributes of a link or port change (in NML: the identifiers are opaque strings and have no inherent attributes; in AutoGOLE and NSI: the distinction between SDP and STP) In yesterday's NML conference [1], we briefly discusses these differences and commonalities. Now, I do not know to what aspect the NSI working group is building on the AutoGOLE work, and what the current issues are. I don't want to interrupt the considerable progress the NSI group is making, and certainly don't want to get in the way of more great demos such as previous year's AutoGOLE demos by interrupting their implementation timelines. I think it would be good for the NML group to: - educate the NSI working group participants on these differences. - listen to the NSI group if there are any problems with the topology as we specified. I realise that the above may take some valuable resources of the NML working group, but I am dedicated to make sure our groups are aligned. My question to you (as NSI co-chairs) is if you think the above is useful, and if so, when we can best discuss this. Would it be useful to discuss this with the whole NSI group, or a subset? I propose that we dedicate a timeslot for this work, and am happy to use the NML break-out slot for this purpose (if you like it earlier, we can see if we can ask Joel to re-arrange some slots). We can also use a NSI or NML telephone call to discuss this. Part of that work means for NML-WG to provide example topology descriptions (which can be done within a few days). But also means making code contributions, which I don't think the NML-WG has the resources for on short term notice. What is your recommended way forward? Regards, Freek Dijkstra [1] http://www.ogf.org/pipermail/nml-wg/2012-February/000815.html