> From my point of view an implementation of such a work should be
> based on a middleware or platform like DCE or CORBA (maybe ONC+, but
> it's more or less "proprietary" and not widely available), since they
> provide standardized and easy to use communication facilities,
> security services (currently only DCE), object orientation (CORBA,
> but DCE extensions are also available) and other services needed in a
> distributed system (DCE: time services, etc.). I would prefer CORBA
> for different reasons (currently it has no security services but this
> will come up in the next time or we could set up our own security
> services):
[ Well, you brought up the CORBA topic so I will shoot now. ;-) ]
I have read papers and heard even more talks about the use of CORBA
for network management or systems management, how to map from ISO,
IETF, DMTF management to CORBA and back and so forth. But I never saw
an implementation which is small, understandable, portable,
interoperable with third party products and highly adaptable to side
specific needs.
The last point is very important for me: Our networks and our (UNIX)
systems usually look very different from site to site - a result of
the open market. (Windows environments don't have this huge number of
differences that UNIX environments have.) Hence I consider it very
important to build a system that invites people to make modifications
and enhancements. Scripting is one way to get this flexibility. CORBA
does not help here.
> a) It's object oriented and offers implementation in different
> languages. It should not be hard to include Tcl, in doubt via the C
> interfaces of both CORBA and Tcl. Is there a language binding for
> Tcl? In preparation?
Why does object-orientation help to solve the problem? Yes, I know the
benefits of object-orientation. But are these benefits critical for
successful system or network management or just an implementation
issue? (You should not mention it as the first argument if its an
implementation issue.)
> b) CORBA or mostly CORBA conformant implementations are available for
> free (ILU, Electra) or even free for academic use
> (Visigenic/PostModernComputing) or cheap (I heard of Iona's
> implementation to be cheap).
But nevertheless not generally available and I have mixed expectations
about their interoperability/efficiency.
> c) CORBA is considered for a future management architecture, see the
> Joint Inter Domain Management (JIDM) work by Xopen and NMF.
Many organizations consider some technology important at some point in
time and a few years later something completely different has taken
over the whole scene. Do you remember what people and organizations
told us about DME a few years ago?
> d) CORBA is coming up as platform for agents, especially since there
> are JAVA bindings.
Lets assume that JAVA is important. This does not automatically make
everything an important agent platform that has a JAVA interface.
> You say "I'm developing". How far is your work? Are you still
> thinking, like me? Or do you have something implemented? How much
> work would it be to change this implementations for a CORBA (or other
> platform if you agree with my thoughts)? The same question to J=FCrgen
> and others? (J=FCrgen said in his answer that he has already
> implemented some client server stuff.)
I am not going to make use of CORBA or any other package which is not
easily available on the average UNIX (or NT?) system. I believe in
small systems and evolution. Tkined surely needs an evolutionary step
to increase its usefulness. But it will be just a step forward and not
an attempt to build the overall management solution. (Many people have
tried to build the overall management solution in the past and many of
these projects simply fail to deliver what they have promised.)
I know that the European research community really loves to talk about
thinks like CORBA, TINA, DCE, TNM, ODP, ... but this is far away from
my everyday world. You should take a critical look at these things and
come up with your own mind how useful and/or successful these
technologies are to solve our everyday management problems and why we
still use utilities based on other technologies to get our work done.
[ Now switching back from talk mode to do some real work. :-) ]
Juergen
-- Juergen Schoenwaelder schoenw@cs.utwente.nl http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~schoenw Computer Science Department, University of Twente, (Fax: +31-53-489-3247) P.O. Box 217, NL-7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands. (Tel. +31-53-489-3678)