Network Mark-up Language Working Group Open Grid Forum, Infrastructure Area Administrative Information ========================== Name and Acronym: NML-WG Co-Chairs: Martin Swany Paola Grosso Secretary(s)/Webmaster(s) (both optional): The above proposed chairs will share the role of secretary E-mail list: nml-wg@ggf.org Web page: http://forge.ggf.org/projects/nml-wg http://www.science.uva.nl/research/sne/ndl/ Charter ======= Abstract / Group Description ---------------------------- Hybrid networks offer end users a mix of traditional connections and new optical services in the form of dedicated lightpaths. These must be requested in advance and are currently configured on demand by the operators. Because lightpaths are circuit switched, the user must be aware of the topology and of the techniques involved in the provisioning. Once connected, they offer a high-speed, low-level connection to the requested destination. The working group will provide an extensible schema to describe computer networks. This schema should provide an abstraction layer for networks, specifically hybrid networks. Such a schema can be used to create inter-domain network graphs at various abstraction levels, to provide an information model for service discovery, and to facilitate lightpath provisioning. Focus/Purpose ------------- The purpose of the Network Mark-up Language Working Group is to combine efforts of multiple projects to describe network topologies, so that the outcome is a standardised network description ontology and schema, facilitating interoperability between different projects. The groups and projects are: System and Network Engineering group of the University of Amsterdam, Network Management WG of the OGF, and GÉANT2 in particular, as well as efforts in the Global Lambda Integrated Facility (GLIF) community, Internet 2 and ESnet. Scope ----- The scope of the Network Markup Language Working Group is to define one or more schemas to describe: (a) a layer independent network topology and (b) properties that are common across for multiple network technologies, as well as (c) a mechanism so that other working groups or other projects may combine technology specific schemas with the schemas created by the NML working group. The working group will not look into policy related schemas, nor into schemas related to scheduling and reservation. The working group will use existing schemes as starting point, and aims to build as much as possible on work done in the IETF Netconf, CCAMP and IPPM working groups, if deemed applicable. [ideas for additional text: "common language", "ontology", "schema" vs. "instantiate", "reporting topology", "descriptive vs. "prescriptive"."] Goals ----- The goals of the NML-WG may be defined by a set of deliverables and the milestones for their delivery. These deliverables are: D1. An informational document describing the context of the work. [Should this document further refines the scope of the work? Freek thinks so. For example, decide if we include dynamic information in the scheme (i.e. device configuration information) or just static information? Decide if we include domain abstraction information in the schema or not? Decide to use UML, XML, RDF, and/or OWL (lite/dl/full) as the schema language? Do we include example networks we want to describe in our network? Should we describe the relation with other technologies?] D2. A recommendation document describing a normative schema which allow the description of a basic network topology. This schema does not include any layer or technology specific information. [What we do is both create a model, that is we tell people how to map network elements to functional elements, and then give a syntax to describe the functional elements. This implicitly also gives the scope of the schema: If you can't describe a network in these functional elements, you can't use our schema.] D3. A recommendation document describing a normative schema which, along with the schema in deliverable 2, can be used to describe a multi-layer network. [Should we limit the scope here? For example, we surely want to include a simple property which can be used to describe which interface/device operates at which layer, and we want a property that allows us to define the relations between different layers. However, we don't want to create seven detailed schemes to define all details of ATM, SDH/SONET, DWDM, optical fibers, copper wires, IP, and Ethernet.] D4. An informational document describing experiences and of early implementations. [Should we mention "interoperability test"?] Timeline -------- GGF 19 (feb 2007): - official start of working group - first draft of deliverable 1 ready for discussion - discussion on schema language, and exact scope - outline and author list of deliverable 2 March 2007: - second draft of deliverable 1, ready for WG review on mailing list April 2007: - deliverable 1 submitted to formal GGF document process GGF 20 (may 2007): - first draft of deliverable 2 ready for discussion - outline and author list of deliverable 3 GGF 21 (sep 2007): - second draft of deliverable 2 ready for final discussion - first draft of deliverable 3 ready for discussion - outline and author list of deliverable 4 October 2007: - deliverable 2 submitted to formal GGF document process GGF 22 (feb 2008): - second draft of deliverable 3 ready for discussion - first draft of deliverable 4 ready for discussion GGF 23 (may 2008): - third draft of deliverable 3 ready for final discussion - second draft of deliverable 4 ready for final discussion July 2008: - deliverable 3 submitted to formal GGF document process - deliverable 4 submitted to formal GGF document process GGF 24 (sep 2008): - official closure of working group Management Issues ================= Evidence of commitments to carry out WG tasks --------------------------------------------- The following people are committed as author: Jeroen van der Ham, University of Amsterdam Bert Andree, university of Amsterdam Martin Swany, University of Delaware The following people are committed as reviewer: Cees de Laat, University of Amsterdam Paola Grosso, university of Amsterdam Freek Dijkstra, University of Amsterdam Anand Patil, Dante Jerry Sobiesky, MAX Chris Tracy, MAX John Vollbrecht, Internet2 In addition we are committed to volunteer the following people, even though they don't know yet: Andreas Hanemann, DFN Pre-existing Document(s) (if any) ======================== This work will be based on: - Network Description Language (NDL) RDF Schema by the System and Network Engineering group of the University of Amsterdam. See http://www.science.uva.nl/research/sne/ndl/ - the UML schema used in perfSONAR for network description - the UML schema used in the cNIS project in GÉANT 2 for network description Exit Strategy ============ The work of the NML-WG will be deemed complete upon the delivery of a first version of each of the deliverables listed above in the section entitled "Goals". The preliminary schedule for the release of deliverables is provided above. Any other relevant information ============================== None