RE: [provision] One or many data models?

["Jeff Bohren" <jbohren@opennetwork.com>]

Title: Message

There are good reasons why the SPML 1.0 schema language should be carried forward into the 2.0 specification:

 

1) This approach was approved by 15% of the OASIS members at the time (over 40 members)

2) It is being using by existing commercial software products

3) It explicitly supports the data model used by all LDAP directories, virtual directories, and meta-directories

 

Perhaps the best approach would be to define the SPML 2.0 spec in terms of a core protocol and two "profiles" or "bindings". One "profile" could define attribute/value data model and associated schema language and one could define the xsd data model. Implementors could decide whether to support one or both of the profiles and we could let the market decide which is better.

 

One point of clarification, the ONT SPML 2.0 Proposal also supports the notion of late binding as described below. Whether a specific SPML service uses the SPML 1.0 schema langauge, xsd, or a mixture of the two is returned in the schema response. In that sense there is little functional difference between the two proposals.

 

 

Jeff Bohren

Product Architect

OpenNetwork Technologies, Inc

 

Try the industry's only 100% .NET-enabled identity management software. Download your free copy of Universal IdP Standard Edition today. Go to www.opennetwork.com/eval.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Gearard Woods [mailto:gewoods@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 1:14 AM
To: Darran Rolls
Cc: provision@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [provision] One or many data models?

I should clarify what my argument is here because it really has less to do with supporting two data models than it has to do with building the 1.0 schema language and data model into the 2.0 spec. I am all in favour of allowing the transport of SPML 1.0 schema and data within 2.0 messages. What I don't think is a good idea is making it part of the spec. Once it becomes part of the spec then any implementation will have to support it and it will be perpetuated into all of the future work on the SPML. I would prefer that the means to use the schema language and SPML 1.0 data within the 2.0 framework should be done as was suggested in WS-Provisioning and as I demonstrated at the F2F, i.e. by allowing clients to discover the schema language in use by namespace, a "late-binding" approach if you will. This breaks the tight coupling between the schema language and the spec, and allows 2.0 to progress without having to carry the restrictions of 1.0 with it forever more.
Gerry


"Darran Rolls" <Darran.Rolls@waveset.com>

"Darran Rolls" <Darran.Rolls@waveset.com> 03/01/2004 09:17 PM

To: <provision@lists.oasis-open.org> cc: Subject: [provision] One or many data models?

As discussed, the committee has to decide on the data model for the 2.0 specification. On the one hand, as prototyped by Jeff Bohren at the last F2F meeting, we can devise a solution that keeps the 1.0 DSML data model by adding an extensible schema "root" that allowed for its coexistence with a new "XML Schema" data model. The "cost" of this model is increased complexity. On the other hand we can take a single data model solution as proposed by Gerry Woods at the F2F and base 2.0 on a pure XML Schema data model at the "expense" of 1.0/ 2.0 compatibility and backwards support for 1.0 in a 2.0 compliant service.

Please consider this issue and ask questions/state preferences now. I propose we hold a ballot on this issue around the next committee con-call 3/16/04.

Thanks
Darran