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Summary of Quality of Service Taskforce Meeting- Including Joint Sessions
With Other Forums
The Presentations are now up on the web. Sorry, but we only allow
access to the presentations to members of the QoS Task Force. Please
contact Sally Long
or Birgit Hartje if you are
not a member and would like to learn more about membership.
The URL for the presentations is: http://www.opengroup.org/mem_only/councils/q301/ Click on
forums button, and from there on Quality of Service.
The QoS session at The Open Group Conference in Austin this week was
a 2-day open to the public working session. There were two days of very
interesting speakers and thought provoking discussion throughout. Through
separate and joint sessions with other Open Group Forums, the Taskforce
covered a variety of topics. During the two days the Taskforce:
- Reviewed the Taskforce’s End-to-End Component Map emphasizing the
goal of translating SLA paper agreements between customers and service
providers to machine language by capturing the SLA requirements and
policies necessary to drive resource management according to the information
in the SLAs.
- Devoted some time reviewing the recently drafted QoS Taxonomy and
where it needs revision in order to reach the fit for purpose state.
The QoS Taxonomy is a way of referencing existing industry standards,
draft specifications etc in a way that maps those standards to discreet
components, interfaces etc. in the QoS Component. This taxonomy will
provide the structure for the QoS domain of The Open Group’s Standards
Information Base.
- John McConnell, President of McConnell Associates, an industry analyst
and expert in the area of enterprise management and eBusiness requirements
provided an interesting approach to the classification of Service Level
Agreements as they apply to different constituents. John’s input on
QoS and SLAs throughout the two days was also invaluable.
- Discussed the IEEE’s Proposed Upper Ontology Standard and the proposal
from Lou Coker of Teknowledge for the QoS Taskforce to take on the QoS
Ontology Domain for that Standard. Teknowledge has already developed
an inference engine and tool kit for the Upper Ontology that is publicly
available from their web site. People were very excited about refining
this approach and initiating the standards work for the QoS domain.
- Considered the interdependencies of the various components in end-to-end
QoS, as presented by Vladimir Sukonnik of Sitara Networks. We learned
from Terry Blevins, CIO of The Open Group how a business scenario can
be used to capture those dependencies and associated business requirements,
and at the end of the day the taskforce decided to work with The Boeing
Company to apply that end-to-end business scenario to their large customer
environment.
- Met together in a joint session with The Open Group’s Mobile Management
Forum and listened to a valuable presentation from Richard Tennett from
The Boeing Company on the issues of SLA negotiation and re-negotiation
as a user moves from one domain to another.
- Jean Hammond from Quarry Technologies introduced an application profiling
description for categories of applications as they apply to bandwidth
requirements and characteristics. Application Profiling is one of the
most important areas for the QoS Taskforce members and they believe
they can effectively work with other consortia to contribute to a faster
evolution of application profiling.
- Combined efforts with the Enterprise Management Forum, to learn from
Ray Williams of Tivoli Systems, how the Common Information Model might
be used for specifying QoS requirements and talked about the possibilities
of working together with the QoS Taskforce on further schema work.
- Joined the Real-time and Embedded Systems Forum and discussed how
the QoS component map and Proposed Ontology can be extended to apply
to Real-Time environments as well. Dave Emery from Mitre gave a presentation
on the importance of validating QoS standardization elements with the
layers of the ISO model from the application level down. We discussed
the importance in working with other Forums within The Open Group as
well as other consortia outside The Open Group.
- Received and update from Dock Allen from the Mitre Corporation, our
OMG liaison representative, who gave an update on OMG activities.
- Listened to Dave Lounsbury, VP of Advanced Research and Development
at The Open Group who provided an architectural mapping of a surface
to air, mission critical and real-time defense application to the QoS
Taskforece Component Model. This illustrated the applicability of the
QoS architecture to real-time applications- particularly with respect
to the monitor decide and control loops associated with real-time measurements
and resource allocation. Although it is recognized that the deterministic
requirements of real-time are in some senses outside the scope of the
average range of QoS requirements it was agreed that continuing to work
together in a joint working group will allow us to progress in sync
where they do overlap.
Business and Strategic Discussions:
The QoS Taskforce spent a good part of the second day discussing their
business plan; goals, vision, roadmap, strategy for working with other
consortia, evolving the SLA/QoS Ontology, and the priorities and timelines
associated with the Roadmap as outlined below.
Vision
The Vision of The Quality of Service (QoS) Taskforce
is to further a standard approach to the propagation of customer-to-vendor
and vendor-to-vendor QoS requirements and measurements in a manner that
is quantifiable, observable, and interoperable, and realizes a process
for end-to-end Quality of Service assurance which is acceptable to vendors
and customers alike.
The focus for that vision is on End-to-End Quality
of Service. That is, the assurance of Quality of Service levels within
operating and embedded systems, within enterprise and internet servers
and applications, through local and wide area networks, wire and wireless,
to remote services and service providers.
By furthering a standard approach to Quality of Service
specifications and Service Level Agreements, measurements and policies,
we will provide to vendors and customers the ability to detect points
of failure both for the purposes of remedying the situation as quickly
as possible and for providing assurance to the customers that they are
receiving the service levels they have been guaranteed.
Goals
-
Establish effective and productive relationships with other QoS Consortia
in order to work together as partners to achieve the end-to-end QoS
Vision.
-
Make existing QoS standards for service level agreements, and policies
more effective, interoperable, and certifiable, and where standards
and policies do not exist, but are needed, contribute to their creation.
-
Extend existing QoS standards, Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and
policies to account for transition between various IT segments to
enables QoS propagation across all segments and enables end-to-end
Quality of Service assurance.
-
Work with Customers and Vendors to achieve a process for QoS assurance
that is integrated with their business operation and reflects a total
cost of ownership that is acceptable to all constituents.
-
Establish testing and certification programs for Quality of Service
standards and policies in the various QoS market segments.
Technology Strategy
Since the QoS Taskforce is relatively new our technical strategy is still
evolving. It involves investigation to determine our technical direction,
and the creation of certain deliverables (Component Map, Taxonomy, Standards
Information Base, Ontology), which will help evolve our technical strategy
and add to our credibility.
Because we are cognizant of existing efforts for QoS standards,
policies, and interoperability, we want to base our future direction on
activities that are not duplicating other initiatives. To accomplish that
we use the following Phased Approach.
·
Definition Phase Q3/01
·
Evaluation & Decision Making Phase Q4/01
·
Implementation Phase Q1/02
In the Definition Phase we gather information on existing
standards, policies, consortia, and interoperability initiatives and record
our findings in The Open Group’s Standards Information Base (SIB). We
have drafted a QoS taxonomy, which corresponds to our component map and
will use that as the taxonomy structure in the QoS section of the SIB.
As we move the SIB forward, we hope at some point to tie it to TOGAF (The
Open Group Architectural Framework).
· In the
Evaluation and Decision Phase we determine which of the standards/initiatives
(existing or potential) most meet the needs of our customers' and vendors'
requirements and bring us closest to achieving the QoS Taskforce Vision
The Open Group understands the importance of working closely
with other QoS Consortia and as such has made that a major focal point
of our strategy going forwards and are taking a pro-active approach to
establishing liaison relationships and joint initiatives with other consortia
in this space.
Next Steps and Actions
- On-line Forum & Web Cast I Vendor & Discussion Thread TBD)
- 1/Month – Beginning Aug 15th.
- Business Scenario Work Shop with Boeing Q3, 01
- Regional Meeting (Consignia) UK – Sept, 01
- Taxonomy and SIB Rev.1 Q3
- Component Map - Rev.2 – Sept, 01
- Ontology - Rev 2 (QoS Specific Application) Sept, 01
- Package Deliverables (Ontology, Component Map, etc. with Message (e.g.
White Paper, Proposal) Sept, 01
- Approach Prioritized list of Consortia for Partnering via Liaison
Relationships and Specific Joint Development Projects - Q3, 01
- Roundtable Discussion with Service Providers - Sept 2001 (Sponsor
Member Company TBD) - November 2001
- Quarterly Conference - Amsterdam - Oct. 2001
For more information on the QoS Taskforce please contact s.long@opengroup.org
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