Glossary definitions

[Jem Treadwell <Jem.Treadwell@hp.com>]

Hi,

I'm the editor of the GGF's OGSA Glossary doc.  We're planning to release the first version by the end of June, and we want to make sure that key terminology is aligned with the WS-N terminology, and with any other authoritative definitions.  I've raised issue WSN1.5, about the fact that "event" is not defined in the WS-N documentation.

Below are some definitions as they currently stand in my (unpublished) working draft OGSA glossary:

• Event:  A significant occurrence.

  Anything that occurs in or to a computer system that is potentially interesting to a person, to some other part of the same system, or to an external system may be considered to be an event.

  Information about an event may be expressed as a log record and stored in a log service.  It may also be communicated to other interested services through a notification message.

• Notification : See notification message.

• Notification message: A message communicating the details of an event to an interested party.  Commonly abbreviated to “notification.”

• Notify: Send a notifcation message.
  

In WS-N, of course, the term "event" is replaced with "situation" (which I'd like to discuss, but not in this thread!).  For reference, here are the equivalent definitions from the WS-N pub/sub white paper:

• Situation: A Situation is some occurrence within a Web service or its environment of
  interest to third parties.

• NotificationMessage: A NotificationMessage is an artifact of a Situation containing information
  about that Situation that some entity wishes to communicate to other
  entities.

• Notification: A Notification is the act of transmitting a NotificationMessage to an interested
  party.
  

Here's the definition from the Open Group's XEMS spec:

• Event: An individual data entity corresponding to some information that needs to be communicated from the managed environment to the management applications is known as an "event".

I'm happy that these definitions are well-enough aligned, but if anyone has comments I'd like to hear them.

Thanks,

- Jem

-- 
Jem Treadwell              
Hewlett-Packard Company           Phone:  (732) 577-6043
200 Route 9 North                 Fax:    (732) 577-6003
Manalapan, NJ 07726               E-mail: Jem.Treadwell@hp.com