Scenario for dynamic properties for WSDM-->WSRF & Schema thereof

[Fred Carter <fred.carter@amberpoint.com>]

Usage of Dynamic Properties:

WSDM defines a mean for returning management data via Resource 
Properties.  WSDM defines a set of core properties, but the set is 
defined to be extensible.  Products which implement the WSDM standard 
may choose to offer their extended data sets via properties.  Indeed, 
this is the preferred scenario.

Some management products (in our case, offering a management provider) 
may allow its users to define additional, say, metrics which are 
dynamically instantiated.  In such a case, we would prefer that these 
dynamically defined properties be added into the resource properties 
framework.  In this usage, the resource properties would need to be 
extended with the newly defined property.

Schema availability:

Extending this scenario, some management products (again, acting as a 
management provider) may define their (dynamically or otherwise) 
properties with extended structure.  For example, some metric may offer 
an hourly summary, a min/max over some period, pointer to historical 
collections, etc.

For a consumer of the data (either a management tool or human), having 
access to this data is valuable and relevant.  Since all data is 
returned in XML, an XML appropriate means of description is required. 
In the current environment, the preferred means of doing this is 
XML-Schema (it is worth noting that this is compatible with Resource 
Properties as well).

In order to provide for consumption of this extended data, it is 
valuable to offer the ability to obtain the schema for the current 
resource properties document and/or the particular [named] properties. 
Given this schema, a sufficiently advanced consumer can examine the 
schema and determine the most appropriate means of interpreting the data.

-- 
Fred Carter / AmberPoint, Inc.

mailto:fred.carter@amberpoint.com
tel:+1.510.433.6525 fax:+1.510.663.6301