[services-wg] FW: two issues of terminology

[Vicraj Thomas]

------ Forwarded Message
> From: Vicraj Thomas <vthomas at bbn.com>
> Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:09:53 -0600
> To: Jeff Chase <chase at cs.duke.edu>, Harry Mussman <hmussman at bbn.com>
> Cc: Aaron Falk <falk at bbn.com>, ibaldin <ibaldin at renci.org>
> Subject: Re: two issues of terminology
> 
> Jeff,
> 
> I've been using the term "Experimenter Tools" to refer to any tool available
> to the experimenter that makes it easier to use GENI from experimentation.
> These include tools such as:
>     - Resource discovery tools
>     - Provisioning tools.  These are the first category of tool you mention
> in your email and is used to program components: Load software into
> components and configure them.  Raven is an example of such a tool for the
> PlanetLab control framework.
>     - Experiment control tools: These are the second category of tools you
> mention in your email.  GUSH is an example of such a tool.
> 
> I include other tools under "Experimenter Tools" such as:
>     - Debugging tools
>     - Collaboration tools for use by researchers based in different
> locations
>     - Search tools to find resources
> 
> < Vic
> 
> 
> 
> On Feb 17 12:41 PM, "Jeff Chase" <chase at cs.duke.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Folks,
>> 
>> Two quick questions/proposals on terminology.  These might be comments
>> for the CF requirements doc.  But they have also come up in drafting
>> spiral 2 proposals.
>> 
>> Both deal with what has been called "experimenter tools" or "experiment
>> control tools" in various GENI docs.
>> 
>> (1) There is a useful distinction between code that runs inside a slice
>> vs. code that runs outside a slice.   Code that runs inside a slice
>> falls under the category of "component programming" and the
>> programmability requirement (S 5.5.5 in the CF requirements doc).   The
>> question is: do we have an accepted name for toolkits or other
>> off-the-shelf software artifacts whose purpose is to support
>> easy/flexible programming of various components?   An example from the
>> literature might be Click or Ilia's SILO framework.    The specific
>> question that drove this concerns whether it is right to refer to SILO
>> as "experimenter tools".  I would argue that we should not consider
>> these as "experimenter tools" so as not to blur this useful distinction.
>> 
>> (2) I think we have reached some kind of consensus (within services-wg
>> and I think in my discussions with GPO folks) for a first-class
>> entity/actor that controls and monitors a slice.  I think Gush is
>> perhaps the best-known example.  The defining element that makes such an
>> entity "first-class" is that it is persistent so that other actors in
>> the control framework, or slivers in its slice, can send unsolicited
>> messages/notifications to it.   And it may respond by taking autonomous
>> actions to control the slice on behalf of an experimenter.  Previously
>> we haven't had a name for this entity.  I propose that it be called
>> "slice controller".   (Note: in Orca-world we presume/require/support
>> such a beast: we have called it "service manager" since the SHARP days
>> in 2003, and then started talking about "guest controller" plugin to the
>> SM that implements a control policy.)  The specific question that drove
>> this is whether we will be understood by GPO if we say "slice
>> controller".  I think David Irwin had told me he though Harry's
>> preferred term was "experiment controller", but I'm not seeing any
>> "controller" term now in the CF req doc.
>> 
>> Jeff
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 

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