Subject: SENSE> Where to go from here?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 08:49:19 -0500

jkm said:

>I guess I'm a bit disappointed by your response in which you appear
>to give credence to Tom's rather rash, "skip the requirements"
>approach to progressing Sense.
>
>Apparently neither of you got the gist of my earlier message in
>which I stated that we had to get back to basics so that people
>can understand how the current Sense architecture resulted in the
>way that it did.

What really is the question here?  Should we narrow the focus
of the SENSE requirements to be focused specifically on an IPP
or similar environment or should they be broad and cover the
range from a local network to the entire Internet?

We, as the PWG, have run into this problem before.  If we
narrow our scope we stand a chance of getting some done.  Of
course the downside is that what we end up with probably won't
scale easily.  On the other hand, if we try to do something
broad and all encompassing, chances are nothing will happen.

What do we really want to accomplish?  Is a narrow, focused
set of requirements that address the IPP environment a good
start and can we discipline ourselves to not paint ourselves
into a scalability corner?

Don

**********************************************
* Don Wright                 [email-masked] *
* Manager, Strategic Alliances and Standards *
* Lexmark International                      *
* 740 New Circle Rd                          *
* Lexington, Ky 40550                        *
* 606-232-4808 (phone) 606-232-6740 (fax)    *
**********************************************

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From: Jay Martin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Nov 1997 13:31:38 -0500

Good commens, Don.  I agree with you entirely on the subject of
focus and how it can and should foster rapid success.

What concerns me, I guess, is that Tom would have us rush in and
use Sense--as it is currently defined and implemented--to immediately
address the needs of IPP and JMP.  This approach implies a complete
and unanimous group approval on the Sense work to date.

As the primary Sense developer, I should be both flattered and
excited at the thought of such an immediate adoption of Sense as
Underscore has conceived it.  However, I wasn't born yesterday...

Carl-Uno made the observation that Sense's current design was
probably overkill for IPP...at least for *some* scenarios of IPP,
anyway.  And I tend to agree, to a certain extent.

What I am hoping we can do in the immediate future is:

  1. Get group consensus on the base set of requirements and
     reasonable constraints.  This document should serve as
     the best guide to know when we have run "into the mud" on
     any given Sense topic in the future.

  2. Commence discussions on the basic operational nature of events
     as seen (and handled) by consumers and producers of events.
     This discussion should naturally converge towards a basic
     understanding of such critical issues as protocol design, the
     concept of a "session" (remember, we're talking about a
     subscription/publication model here), and other related issues.

Does everyone agree with this initial starting point?  If so, then
the next step (step #3) would be to draft up the first concrete
design using IPP and/or JMP as the target event environment.

By the way, it is now Wednesday, Nov 5, the deadline I had previously
set for comments on the base requirements document.  Unfortunately,
as of this writing, no one has posted any comments (privately or
publicly) on the document contents.  The document may be found on
the PWG server at:

	ftp://ftp.pwg.org/pub/pwg/sense/reqmts.txt

I would appreciate it if folks would take 5-10 minutes to read the
document (it is a *very* simple document), then post whether you
agree with its contents, or post some changes/concerns/complaints/etc.

If no one takes the time to comment on the proposed draft--an action
which is considered core and ESSENTIAL in standards development--then
I would tend to believe that we are wasting our time with Sense at
this point, as our discussions would not be focused towards the kinds
of goals that we have all come to recognize in all other PWG efforts.

Flames are welcome at this point.  Any discusson is better than no
discussion.  ;-)

	...jay

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From: Ron Bergman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 18:30:18 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)

Jay,

It looks like there is more interest in SENSE than was evident at the
meeting last week.  Also, some very good comments and suggestions were
submitted.  I certainly support any efforts to further this technology.

I believe that I have a fairly good understanding of the concepts,
functions, and capabilities of SENSE, especially with respect to its
application to SNMP.  I had expected that the discussion last week would
be directed more towards the application of SENSE towards IPP.  It was
unfortunate that discussion regarding the notification requirements of IPP
was not completed.  This would be a good starting point for progressing
SENSE.

Once the IPP requirements are fully defined, it should be very easy to see
how SENSE can or cannot provide a solution.

	Ron Bergman
	Dataproducts Corp.