Re: NADF and other pilots [ was Re: UK Academic...]
yeongw@spartacus.psi.com Sat, 15 February 1992 01:29 UTC
Received: from nri.reston.va.us by NRI.NRI.Reston.VA.US id aa03508; 14 Feb 92 20:29 EST
Received: from bells.cs.ucl.ac.uk by NRI.NRI.Reston.VA.US id aa03500; 14 Feb 92 20:29 EST
Received: from spartacus.psi.com by bells.cs.ucl.ac.uk with Internet SMTP id <g.21462-0@bells.cs.ucl.ac.uk>; Fri, 14 Feb 1992 23:00:18 +0000
Received: from localhost by spartacus.psi.com (5.61/1.3-PSI/PSINet) id AA01055; Fri, 14 Feb 92 18:00:02 -0500
Message-Id: <9202142300.AA01055@spartacus.psi.com>
To: osi-ds@cs.ucl.ac.uk
Subject: Re: NADF and other pilots [ was Re: UK Academic...]
Cc: yeongw@psi.com
Reply-To: osi-ds@cs.ucl.ac.uk
In-Reply-To: Your message of Thu, 13 Feb 92 09:49:56 +0100. <9202130850.AA18546@survival.surfnet.nl>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1992 18:00:00 -0500
From: yeongw@spartacus.psi.com
[Pardon the presumption in inviting myself into this discussion, but I think Erik raises an important concern.] > > It was not an easy discussion and we did not resolve much, except to > > (more or less) note that the NADF pilot and the White Pages Pilot > > (including the Internet Pilot) will need to be kept separate without > > any interworking, at least in the beginning ... > > As I am a very firm believer in the "The only viable directory service is the > global directory service" this worries me very much ... > It therefore worries me that the NADF has chosen to keep it's pilot separate > from the internet/paradise/WPP ... In the short term, this decision was made for purely pragmatic reasons: the NADF pilot is just starting up, and it was just too difficult to start up the pilot and at the same time reconcile the structure/technology being used in it with the structure/technology of the Internet pilots. In the long term, I don't see any opposition to the idea of combining the pilots from either community. Of course, that may be due to neither community knowing very much about what the other is doing ... :-) > In short (I do not want to break Wengyik's record) Stef (or Marshall) could > you elaborate a bit on the arguments for not joining the pilots... Again, I don't think anybody is opposed to the idea of combining the pilots. However, there is major work involved in reconciling just the technological basis of the two pilots, never mind the nontechnical stuff. For that reason (and I know of no other; Stef, Marshall and the other NADF people on osi-ds feel free to correct me), it was considered expedient to keep the pilots separate, at least initially. To give you an idea of the differences between the pilots, the approaches of the NADF and the Internet differ in the following key (to me) areas: Naming: The NADF naming scheme is listing-centric, the (current) Internet scheme is registration-centric. I actually disagree somewhat with Stef here in that I believe that reconciling the disparate naming schemes is the easiest problem to resolve (from a purely technical standpoint, anyway). The NADF and the Internet have different schemas. [Actually, the NADF schema is effectively a subset of the Internet's by virtue of the fact that most everybody in the Internet is using quipu, and the NADF schema additions are in the 7.0 quipu oidtables.] Information-sharing: The NADF and the Internet differ very fundamentally in that the former allows authority for an entry to be distributed across multiple DMDs, whereas the Internet requires that an authority for any single entry reside in one, and only one, DMD. In fact, with the exception of France, the Internet effectively requires that a single DSA be authoritative for all the immediate subordinates of a nonleaf node in the DIT (ie., EDBs). The NADF and the Internet also differ in that for the most part (again, excluding France, sorry don't mean to pick on the French), the Internet manages knowledge (DSA entries) using the Directory itself, whereas the NADF manages Directory knowledge by means outside of the Directory. The Internet has a common DIT which is shared across all participating DITs. The NADF allows each DMD to have its own copy (view) of the DIT (this is an oversimplification, but so is this entire message). Directory Operations: The Internet mostly (excepting France again) synchronizes the DIT across DSAs automatically (using the EDB replication protocol). The NADF has a different scheme involving a exchanges between a central clearing house and various DMDs that require human involvement. NADF Directory operations are DMD-based, Internet Directory operations are DSA-based. This is not just a matter of different words, but affects the way responsibility for the operation of various parts of the Directory is apportioned. ... and this is just the differences off the top of my head. There are millions of annoying little things that are going to have to be reconciled for the two pilots to combine. Ultimately, both communities are going to have to do some serious compromising if the pilots are ever combined. Wengyik
- UK Academic Community Code of Conduct Steve Hardcastle-Kille
- Re: UK Academic Community Code of Conduct John Lowry
- Re: UK Academic Community Code of Conduct George Michaelson
- Re: UK Academic Community Code of Conduct Christian Huitema
- Re: UK Academic Community Code of Conduct Einar Stefferud
- NADF and other pilots [ was Re: UK Academic...] Erik Huizer (SURFnet BV)
- Re: NADF and other pilots [ was Re: UK Academic..… yeongw
- Re: NADF and other pilots [ was Re: UK Academic..… Christian Huitema
- UCL Telex number - "40" or "54" in NSAP Christian Huitema
- Re: UCL Telex number - "40" or "54" in NSAP Colin Robbins
- Re: UCL Telex number - "40" or "54" in NSAP "/I=A/S=Macpherson/OU=HAL0200/O=STC Technology Ltd/PRMD=STC Plc/"
- Re: UCL Telex number - "40" or "54" in NSAP Christian Huitema
- Re: UCL Telex number - "40" or "54" in NSAP Steve Hardcastle-Kille