Hi On Thu, 6 Dec 2012, Vangelis Chaniotakis wrote:
I hope these are productive suggestions: - let's name it something akin to "GlobalConnectionId" - let's make it mandatory, - let's specify the desired immutable behavior
( Ideally I'd also really like to take another page from the commercial world and have something like those 6-character strings used for airline reservations assigned to the end-to-end connection.. but that's not necessarily an NSI feature I suppose - can be part of a meta-service)
How about this: We merge the connectionId and globalReservationId (not sure on the name) - It is generated by the client and must be generated in a way where clashes should not occur (UUIDs are obvious, but I'd prefer not to force specific technology needlessly). - This creates a single identifier for the whole connection for both users and any other third part that must use the connection. - If an NSA receives a request with a (global) connection id the request is rejected, as the client should feel bad. Additionally, each NSA must assign an identifier to a connection if (and only if) a local link is created. We can call this linkId. This means: We have one - and only - identifier to refer to the whole connection. This is the primary way of referencing the connection, and will in most cases be the only thing a user / third party will need. We have an identifier for each link in the connection. Besides the obvious use of identifying connection segments individually, this can be used for contacting the NOC or similar. By allowing the NSA to assign this it becomes possible to integrate into local systems, and re-use identifiers from a local system (I have this requirement, though it is not set in stone). Thoughts? Best regards, Henrik Henrik Thostrup Jensen <htj at nordu.net> Software Developer, NORDUnet