OMG Internet SIG
Minutes of Meeting #9

Tampa, Florida
January 13-14, 1997

OMG Document internet/97-01-01

OMG Internet SIG homepage

Contents

Meeting Summary

We completed an analysis, begun in Nice, France, of responses to the Internet Services RFI, and issued recommendations to ORB/OS and recommendations to Common Facilities Task Forces for suites of future RFPs. In addition, we formed a Working Group on Composable Architecture to study guarantees regarding how OMG specifications compose, federate, and interoperate in practice (see composition recommendations). Finally, we discussed the future role of Internet SIG in OMG. In subsequent joint meetings with Common Facilities and ORBOS we reviewed two draft RFPs based on Internet SIG recommendations made in Nice, one for Common Internet Services (document number not yet assigned) and one for Reverse Java Mapping (orbos/96-12-12). At the next meeting of the Internet SIG in Austin, the Composable Architectures Working Group will meet. In addition, we may also assemble those interested in an open, next generation HTTP architecture (requirements, architecture, interfaces, any need for IDL interfaces).

Attendees

Meeting Minutes

Recapping the previous meeting of ISIG

At the last Internet SIG meeting held in Nice, France (see minutes of Meeting #8), we reviewed three responses to the Internet Services RFI (from Mitre (internet/96-10-02), OBJS (internet/96-10-03), and Data Access (internet/96-10-03)), began an analysis of the responses, and made recommendations to Common Facilities Task Force to issue a draft Reverse Java Mapping RFP (orbos/96-12-12)and an URL-IOR Mapping RFP (no subsequent action taken by the OMG meeting in Tampa) and to Common Facilities Task Force to issue a draft Common Internet Services RFP (drafted, no document number assigned yet).

This Meeting

RFI Analysis completed, recommendations formulated. Craig Thompson, one of the ISIG co-chairs, led today's meeting and recorded these minutes. We began with a review of the activities and results of the OMG Nice meeting, then described what has been achieved since that meeting, namely two RFP drafts: one on Common Internet Services RFP (Common Facilities Task Force), the other on a Reverse Java Mapping RFP (ORBOS RFP).

We then began a half-day review of a draft set of recommendations, prepared in advance of the meeting by Thompson. These consisted of three pages of bullets listing a large suite of proposed RFPs, which summarized the RFI response recommendations. Thompson mentioned that there are three driving forces behind these recommendations:

The recommendations were roughly sorted into three groups: recommendations to ORBOS Task Force, recommendations to Common Facilities Task Force, and recommendations to OMG concerning componentware and composability of OMG specifications and implementations.

Note: the only formal vote was after Thompson asked if we should form a working group on composition and federation in OMG architectures, then Shel Sutton made a motion to form such a group, Sankar seconded, and white ballot vote confirmed the sense of the group.

A controversial topic was: should OMG somehow provide for reference implementations in its process, for instance like IETF does. Maybe the Test group should get involved in this. Obviously, such an implementation would have to be branded by conformance testing.

Discussion on Continued Role of Internet SIG. Since its founding in 1995, the mission of Internet SIG has been two-fold: arrange for informational presentations and sync up OMG to Internet/Web standards. At the OMG meeting in Hyannis, we considered whether to recommend to the Platform Technical Committee to progress Internet SIG to a task force. We decided then to issue the Internet Services RFI, consider whether responses warranted creating a new task force or whether we could partition recommended work to existing task forces. Based on our results, we believe we can do the latter most successfully. This led us to ask whether Internet SIG has a continuing mission. Certainly, we will have at least one more meeting since we have unfinished business in making recommendations on composable architectures. Many feel we should continue our successful informational role beyond Austin and that other missions will arise (e.g., composable HTTP, coordination of Common Facilities and ORBOS, long-term roadmap).

Joint Meetings between Internet SIG, Common Facilities, and ORBOS. From 3-5 p.m. on Monday and from 9-11 a.m. on Tuesday, Internet SIG met with these other groups for 30 minute (redundant) presentations on a summary of its recommendations. More detailed recommendations to each of these groups will be made at the Austin meeting.

In addition, we reviewed both draft RFPs. Discussions on both raised a number of issues; both are deferred to the Austin meeting to give time to make revisions and raise further issues.

Next Meeting

The next meeting of Internet SIG will take place in Austin, Texas, on March 10, 1997. We will discuss "composable architectures," arrange for informational presentations (possibly on next-generation HTTP systems that are being componentized in some way), and the future role of Internet SIG. Here is an aggressive draft agenda.

OMG Internet SIG Meeting #10

Austin, Texas
March 10-11, 1997

Tentative Agenda

Final Recommendations

Meeting Summary

Drivers

Composition and Architecture ISIG Working Group

Recommendations to OMG ORB/OS

Recommendations to OMG Common Facilities

Long term - Extend OMA toward Global Organized Information Space

Informational Presentation

Distributed Simulation, Fred Koul

Both distributed geographically and across platforms, the distributed simulation community is taking off, especially in training including across allied forces, also in FAA air traffic management training, with wider use by industry expected as tools become cheaper. The time is ripe for standards. U.S. DoD has adopted/mandated High Level Architecture for simulation. HLA is a prime candidate for adoption of an object environment. There is interest in OMG and WWW-NG unification as a base infrastructure.

A Distributed Simulation SIG could contribute. HLA is defined as a set of services. An OMG DSIM SIG would coordinate with Real-time, Internet, and C4I. The SIG could add requirements on CORBA architecture. Some OA&D proposals cover some distributed simulation--their context is executable models. There will be an organizational meeting on Wed 1-5 room 515. Thurs 2:30-5. Captain Hollenbach , Director of DMSO at 1:30 Thursday. He reports to Dr. Anita Jones. Fred has a briefing on HLA with him, also a Mission statement and next moves. There have been two implementations of HLA to date: RTI (Run Time Infrastructure) 0.1 used Orbix. In DMSO Familiarization F0, the decision was made not to use CORBA. This was because some federates are only single threaded. Also, they wanted to be more efficient than CORBA by using asynchronous messaging.