Jeff Chase. Please feel free to join the discussion and please include the
This is the first of three emails on this thread. I'll forward the other
> From: Jeff Chase <
chase@...>
> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:41:43 -0500
> To: Harry Mussman <
hmussman@...>, Vicraj Thomas <
vthomas@...>
> Cc: Aaron Falk <
falk@...>, ibaldin <
ibaldin@...>, Jeff Chase
> <
chase@...>
> Subject: two issues of terminology
>
> Folks,
>
> Two quick questions/proposals on terminology. These might be comments
> for the CF requirements doc. But they have also come up in drafting
> spiral 2 proposals.
>
> Both deal with what has been called "experimenter tools" or "experiment
> control tools" in various GENI docs.
>
> (1) There is a useful distinction between code that runs inside a slice
> vs. code that runs outside a slice. Code that runs inside a slice
> falls under the category of "component programming" and the
> programmability requirement (S 5.5.5 in the CF requirements doc). The
> question is: do we have an accepted name for toolkits or other
> off-the-shelf software artifacts whose purpose is to support
> easy/flexible programming of various components? An example from the
> literature might be Click or Ilia's SILO framework. The specific
> question that drove this concerns whether it is right to refer to SILO
> as "experimenter tools". I would argue that we should not consider
> these as "experimenter tools" so as not to blur this useful distinction.
>
> (2) I think we have reached some kind of consensus (within services-wg
> and I think in my discussions with GPO folks) for a first-class
> entity/actor that controls and monitors a slice. I think Gush is
> perhaps the best-known example. The defining element that makes such an
> entity "first-class" is that it is persistent so that other actors in
> the control framework, or slivers in its slice, can send unsolicited
> messages/notifications to it. And it may respond by taking autonomous
> actions to control the slice on behalf of an experimenter. Previously
> we haven't had a name for this entity. I propose that it be called
> "slice controller". (Note: in Orca-world we presume/require/support
> such a beast: we have called it "service manager" since the SHARP days
> in 2003, and then started talking about "guest controller" plugin to the
> SM that implements a control policy.) The specific question that drove
> this is whether we will be understood by GPO if we say "slice
> controller". I think David Irwin had told me he though Harry's
> preferred term was "experiment controller", but I'm not seeing any
> "controller" term now in the CF req doc.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
>
>
