[services-wg] [cfwg] a proposal for slice stitching

[Jeff Chase]

Robert P Ricci wrote:
> ...
>
> I like the fact that the SM has no special privileges in your design -
> would it be fair to say that it's more a service than a 'core' part of
> the control framework?
>  
>   
On reflection, this question strikes me as revealing somehow.

There is no part of the ORCA design that has any special privilege.   
Every actor speaks for some stakeholder: the AMs speak for the 
infrastructure aggregates they contribute, and the SMs speak for the 
users (experimenters), or rather for their applications 
(experiments).    Brokers have only the ticket-issuing rights delegated 
to them by the AMs that choose to federate through them, and the tickets 
they issue don't carry any special power if the AMs choose to 
over-commit themselves or renege on their promises.  Trust is anchored 
in identity providers outside of ORCA, and each actor controls its own 
policies regarding what powers to give to identities endorsed by those 
providers.

So by this definition there is no 'core' part of the ORCA control 
framework.   In the case of GENI there is a suggestion that we might 
constrain the actor graph in various, e.g., by asking all contributing 
AMs to federate through a common broker that acts as the GENI 
"clearinghouse".   But that's a deployment choice rather than anything 
inherent in the control framework.

This is why when anyone shows me a box-and-arrow diagram, I am always 
pointing at the boxes and asking who each box speaks for and runs for. 
   I am genuinely confused by entities like Slice Authority in the SFA, 
which seems to have some exogenous power to bless slices, or Management 
Authority, which seems to have no power beyond that of the aggregates it 
"speaks through". 

Jeff