Minutes from the DCML TC Teleconferences 8/2/05 & 8/3/05

Dear DCML TC Members,

Below are the minutes from the August 2 and August 3 DCML TC meetings. Please let me know if there are any edits or corrections that should be noted.

Best regards,

Sarah

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August 2, 2005

Name Company

J. Darrel Thomas - EDS
Tim Howes - Opsware Inc.*

Robin Dasham - Phoenix

Zulah Eckert – BEA

Jamie Clarke - OASIS

Update on Use Case – Darrell

MSFT is reviewing material, also DT contacted Andrea and Cisco guys regarding consolidation of efforts. Should have feedback from MSFT regarding construct of system definition model and how DCML should map to layers above and below.

TMF - OASIS exchange - simply have individual member from TMF exchange information with OASIS committee

eTOM - work is in process mapping integrated service model. Perception is that the model is too detailed and is not conducive to easy adoption. eTOM comparison - DCML could make impact in salient etiquette (rules) that could be used to construct name space. Rule 1 - do not recreate data. Second step would be verification and construct validation. There have been many standards and proprietary efforts in detecting data but nothing that rules the data.

Configuration management problem - Having a rule construct the data ensures standardization of configuration management versus vendor specific approaches that is counterintuitive to this approach. For example, naming conventions are not standardized and are focused on vendor interpretation. Current focus has been to have a set of problem calls go away versus making the problem go away.

Fundamental areas for comparison - DCML is compared to CIM / WYSM - do a gap analysis.

Action Item: Possibly review use cases in eTOM as an example – owner open?

Action Item: Robin and David to create first pass of Laws of Configuration Basic guidelines and commandments for creation and instantiation of data center information - allow information to be attached is a problem - should be referenced what do we see as the most important rules for data center.

DCML to affect the religion and base line practice about anecdotal data configuration

Action: Simplified mapping of the problem statement

August 3, 2005

Attendance: Zulah, Fred, Darrel, Robin, Tim

Run Book

As defined in Sun reference book, the run book manages data center operations. This is an ITIL compliant model. Getting people to adhere to standardized run book is one of largest issues that DCML may need to address

Maximize standardized configuration with some flexibility. Should read from existing element and configuration management systems. Rule of consumption is part of control elements.

One of the current issues with configuration management is the passivity associated with validation. The runbook example that Robin showed provides this function but it is mostly manual in nature and tends to be labor intensive

Proving the data is problematic. ITIL does a good job of protecting this process

1. Rules how to create, change, and validate data

2. Need an information/data model

This illustrates a cascading model of what is controlled and what is not controlled.

Find what makes sense to start with the rules based off of business needs. For example, if DCML was to focus on standard server build processes, the resulting efforts could be registered with ISACA as it meets processes (which are ITIL)

http://www.isaca.org/

ITIL as process, CoBIT as adherence, DCML as substantiation of model.

Need to have a common information model which is how to stop data silos from occurring. It may be a difficult position for a standards org to take. This would include capturing of library of what configurations should be

Metadata extract aggregation structure– how to map existing or new data within the model. Attributes that everything within the data center would have mapped to them.

ACTION: Sarah to confirm with OASIS about possible integration of a WIKI collaboration tool on the website to assist in providing a forum for TC members to outline problem statements that they would like DCML to solve.

ACTION: Face-to-face – end of August / beginning of September either on West Coast. Initial comments indicated that Zulah and Fred would be able to attend on these dates.

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