Openwings Container Specification Request

Openwings Specification Request (OSR)

Title:

Openwings Container Services (OSR_006)

Summary:

The charter for the Container Services Expert team is to define an abstraction for providing highly available computational resources, which also enforce code security.

Section 1. Identification

Submitting Member and Specification Lead:

Expert Nominee Qualifications:

Candidate for this expert team should have the following qualifications:

1. Experience with the Java 2 platform (mandatory requirement).
2. Experience with load balancing and high availability computing.
3. Detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the Java SecurityManager and ClassLoader.

Section 2: Request

2.1 Please describe the proposed Specification:

The charter for the Container Services Expert team is to define an abstraction for publishing computational resources as services. This includes running java programs and non-java programs. For java programs support for managing pools of JVMs and mapping multiple java “processes” to a single JVM included. Container Services takes on certain availability and security responsibilities as defined in the Openwings Security and Openwings Availability specifications. In particular for availability, Container Services manage component life cycle issues, including activation, startup, shutdown, mobility, load balancing, and fail-over. From a security standpoint, Container Services maintain configuration management of virtual machines and prescribe the security manager components must run under.

The Container Services Expert Team will be responsible for delivering the following:

1. Container Services Specification.
2. Container Services Reference Implementation.
3. Container Services Compatibility Test Suite

2.2 What is the target Java platform? (i.e., desktop, server, personal, embedded, card, etc.)

This specification is targeted mainly towards the J2ME and J2EE platforms. A subset of Container Services may be available on the J2ME platform, pending expert team analysis.

2.3 What need of the Openwings community will be addressed by the proposed specification?

The community needs a standard container for running components in that handles availability and code security.

2.4 Why isn't this need met by existing specifications?

No other specification covers the "container" Service-Oriented programming pattern in Openwings.

2.5 Please give a short description of the underlying technology or technologies:

This specification only uses the core Java platform.

2.6 Is there a proposed package name for the API Specification? (i.e., javapi.something, org.something, etc.)

The proposed package for this specification is net.openwings.container and net.openwings.install.

2.7 Does the proposed specification have any dependencies on specific operating systems, CPUs, or I/O devices that you know of?

To collect platform specific statistics need for load balancing this specification may interface to these services through JNI. This is only the case if a pure Java SNMP approach does not exist.

2.8 Are there any security issues that cannot be addressed by the current Openwings security model?

The Openwings Security model is an input to this specification for code security. Security requirements will be developed in parallel to this effort.

2.9 Are there any internationalization or localization issues?

This OSR is targeted towards systems that may be internationally deployed and hence use the internationalization features of Java. It is anticipated that the existing internationalization infrastructure will be sufficient for this OSR.

2.10 Are there any existing specifications that might be rendered obsolete, deprecated, or in need of revision as a result of this work?

No.

2.11 Please describe the anticipated schedule for the development of this specification.

Currently a draft specification exists as a contribution and starting point. The following schedule applies:

Once the expert team is formed the finalized schedule will be made available.

Section 3: Contributions

3.1 Please list any existing documents, specifications, or implementations that describe the technology.

The Motorola IISG (now General Dynamics C4 Systems)/Sun Openwings team, has previously generated work that is being contributed as a basis for this OSR. In particular the following contributions available at http://www.openwings.org/download.cfm#specs are relevant.

• Openwings White Paper
• Openwings Naming Specification (Alpha version 0.7)
• Openwings Architecture Specification (Alpha version 0.7)
• Openwings Interface Specification (Alpha version 0.7)
• Openwings Component Services Specification (Alpha version 0.7)
• Openwings Connector Services Specification (Alpha version 0.7)
• Openwings Management Specification (Alpha version 0.7)
• Openwings Policy Specification (Alpha version 0.7)

In addition to these draft specifications an alpha reference implementation of connector services, component services, management services, and polices are being contributed. Existing work on the processing service reference implementation is also being offered to this effort.

3.2 Explanation of how these items might be used as a starting point for the work.

The existing specifications provide a background for defining the processing service. In particular, previous work on the container service specification and reference implementation provide guidance to the expert team.

Section 4: Additional Information (Optional)

4.1 This section contains any additional information that the submitting Member wishes to include in the OSR.

None.

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