Grid Resource Allocation Agreement Working Group (GRAAP-WG)
Session minutes OGF 25
March 2-6, 2009
Catania, Italy
Minute taker: Dominic Battré

GRAAP Session #1: Experience Document
-------------------------------------
[Details: see slides on GridForge [1]]

- Progress since last OGF
  - sent survey to various projects, received 7 replies
  - had discussions about negotiation on top of WS-Agreement and decided not
    to wait for WS-Agreement version 2 but create extension that allows
    multi-round negotiation without breaking compatibility
    -> need extension of states but that does not break compliance to
       WS-Agreement

- Experience document
  - presentation of structure of document (see GridForge [2])

- Open issues -> who will work on what?
  - Rationale for writing the document: Oliver, Wolfgang
  - Some project descriptions currently blank, Dominic will check whether
    questionnaires provide sufficient input. Otherwise fall back to the people
    specified below:
    - Akogrimo (Bastian Koller) -> fill questionnaire
    - BREIN (Bastian)
    - BEinGRID BEs (Igor)
    - JSS
    - SmartLM (Oliver & Wolfgang)
  - Section about generic WS-Agreement frameworks -> coordinated by Dominic
    -> write for each framework:
      - dependencies (middleware stack, specifications)
      - ... 
      - Wolfgang will pass list of items to Dominic & Oliver for completion
        and generation of questionnaire
    - forward questionnaire to
      - WSAG4J -> Oliver
      - BREIN framework -> Bastian
      - NegMgr -> Dominic
    - see below
  - Section about interoperation Testing -> Dominic & Oliver -> coordinated
    by Oliver
  - Comments from Projects taken from survey -> Dominic
  - Suggestion for new section: add analysis, which parts are used by
    implementations and which parts are not used -> Igor
  - Further procedure: first we generate a beta version of the document, then
    circulate to everybody who gave input (for updates/changes)

- input from GFSG regarding interoperability demonstration:
  - Need true interoperability of two independent code bases
    -> Both use same template
  - Issue: Hosting environments incompatible
    - adapters are ok to circumvent incompatibilities of hosting environments
  -> demonstration will be job submission with best effort jobs
  - we will include an interoperable template in experience document,
    afterwards we will write a new document discussing various use cases and
    interoperability

- Discussion on "WS-Agreement Frameworks" section in experience document
  - have created list of criteria -> Wolfgang sends this to Oliver & Dominic
    for another iteration
  - possible answers to several questions will be: "automatically handled by
    framework", "can be implemented in domain specific implementation", "not
    supported"

- Should we found a new group for Negotiation?
  -> no, just add an extension since Negotiation is based on WS-Agreement 1.0 and only
     requires small changes resulting in WS-Agreement 1.1
  - update Charta to include Negotiation (Wolfgang)

- GFSG expressed desire to specify term languages (eg. for Advance
  Reservation)

- Some topics shall be addressed at SLA Workshop in Dagstuhl:
  - 1/2 day on Microspec for advanced reservation as JSDL Extension (WSDL
    files), will be passed to JSDL working groups
  - 1/2 day on negotiation (definition of WSDL files)

- Presentation by Ioannis Kotsiopoulos, UoM
  - SLA terms/metrics/... for domains are NOT specified in WS-Agreement
  -> Proposal of semantic annotation
     - semantic annotation = reference to ontology
     - provides semantic interoperability
     - no need to change WS-Agreement
     - Annotation by SAWSDL, is backwards compatible
     - tools: SASLA4j library
  - Comments: very interesting, might fit well into metrics of WS-Agreement

GRAAP Session #2: Negotiation
-------------------------------------

- Implementation for Negotiation exists for SmartLM based on WSAG4J framework
  - started with negotiation
  - will be extended to re-negotiation
  - see slides for details
- legal issues need to be discussed (how long is old agreement valid in case
  of renegotiation)

- discussion:
  - during iterations of negotiation the creation constraints remain the same
  - is the document passed during the negotiation and the template really the
    same? -> seems ok
  - should negotiate be allowed to return >1 template at a time?
    - yes, simpler for a client to handle this
  - should negotiate accept >1 template as parameter?
    - no, user can send several requests sequentially. Advantage: easier for the agreement 
      responder to find out what the agreement initiator wants.
    -> requests to change:
      - NegotiateOutputType:
        - minOccurs="0"
        - maxOccurs="unbound"
      - superseding state missing
        - will be added
      -> Oliver + Wolfgang
  - How do we address PendingAgreementFactories?
    - First ignore this, then ask for input on first version of WSDL files
      from GRAAP mailing list and work on PendingAgreementFactory in parallel
  - Do we need an exception for the provider to tell that it is not willing to
    renegotiate any further?
    -> No, WS-Agreement has too limited exception features, needs a general
       overhaul there as well
    -> it could be put in the final agreement ("this is the last offered
       agreement")
  - Usecases for validation of (re-)negotiation:
    - Graceful termination
    - Service Responder wants to make changes
    - Service Initiator wants to make changes
    - Broker Scenario (broker collects offers)
    - quote is accepted/rejected / no quote generated
    - maybe more in wiki
  - is an extension of agreement context needed?
    - tracking quotes?
    - superseding of agreements
    - maybe, Oliver creates proposal
  -> proposal of document ready by SLA workshop in Dagstuhl (Oliver & Wolfgang)

GRAAP Session #3:
-----------------
cancelled