RE: [wsdm] Definition of the identification manageability capability

["Sedukhin, Igor S" <Igor.Sedukhin@ca.com>]

John, there is an opaque identifier that lets you tell one "thing" from the "other", and there is identification that allows one to tell what one thinks the "thing" is. I was looking for the latter. I actually do no think the former is achievable in a meaningful way before the Mach 04 deadline. I'm sure we will spend another year discussing how to make sure the opaque identifier can actually be unique and not change over time.

If it becomes confusing we can rename the capability to something like "WhatAmIManaging" capability. Definition of such capability is what I'm looking to add to the spec. It solves the problem that I know we can solve now.

-- Igor Sedukhin .. (igor.sedukhin@ca.com)
-- (631) 342-4325 .. 1 CA Plaza, Islandia, NY 11788

-----Original Message-----
From: John DeCarlo [mailto:jdecarlo@mitre.org] 
Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 11:35 AM
To: Sedukhin, Igor S
Cc: WSDM TC
Subject: Re: [wsdm] Definition of the identification manageability capability

Sedukhin, Igor S wrote:

> I propose that the following text is incorporated in MUWS and MOWS specs.
>
> "The identification capability allows the provider of manageability to 
> tell what it thinks it is managing. In other words refer/address/point 
> to the resource it thinks it made manageable. The exact way of 
> "referring" conforms to the subject domain of the resource."
>
Igor,

This looks nice, but I have some comments on it.

1.  I feel somewhat strongly that the "identification" be opaque and unique and not domain specific.
2.  What you describe is crucial, but it would be nice to be sure that it isn't confused with the global MUWS identifier for the resource. 

Thus, I propose the following:

"The identification capability provides the consumer of manageability with a [globally] unique identifier for each managed resource the provider of manageability thinks it is managing.  This identifier is opaque (not decomposable into domain-specific information about the resource).  It can be used to compare the answers from different providers to see if they are both managing the same resource."

"The managed resource reference capability allows the provider of manageability to tell the consumer information about what it thinks it is managing. In other words refer/address/point to the resource it thinks it made manageable. The exact way of "referring" conforms to the subject domain of the resource."

What do you think?

Thanks.

John DeCarlo, The MITRE Corporation, My Views Are My Own