Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:55:40 -0600 (MDT)
From: Bill Birnbaum <Bill.Birnbaum@Eng.Sun.COM>
To: Christian Schiller <schiller@informatik.tu-muenchen.de>
Cc: Bill.Birnbaum@Eng.Sun.COM
Subject: Re: JMAPI Architecture Questions
> Hello,
>
> There are a couple of questions that I would like to hear your comments
> on:
>
> 1. CIM
> ------
> - I understand that the base managed object classes will eventually
> be an implementation of the DMTF CIM model. Will there be some
> support for the MOF syntax, e.g. a MOF2mo compiler?
>
We would like to do something like this, but we will do not even have a
schedule for this type of effort. Probably a next major version work item.
> 2. RMI/CORBA
> ------------
> - Will you stick to RMI as the communication protocol or are you
> planning on integrating some sort of CORBA support?
>
We plan on sticking to RMI for comminication between the browser/application
and MO server. Currently, you can use CORBA to communicate with agents. JMAPI
has a preference toward our RMI agents though its integration with our
concurrency and security model, but there is not anything stopping people from
using other agent technology such as SNMP and CORBA.
>
> 3. Scaling aspects
> ------------------
> - From what I hear, the next JMAPI release is going to include
> the possibility of several MO servers talking to each other.
> Will it be possible to store the same data on several MO servers
> for some sort of load balancing and/or fault tolerance?
We are still looking at this. Right now we are concentrating on getting the
basic APIs through the java standardization process. So this is most likely
the part of the next major version project.
> - What is the communication between the MO servers going to look
> like?
Do not know yet.
>
> 4. Fault Tolerance
> ------------------
> - What happens when parts of the system fail? (e.g. an MO server
> goes down, an agent crashes, etc.)
I believe we can currently take advantage of the distributed capabilities of
some of the commercially available databases to have a backup MO server. If
the MO server goes down you would lose all of the currently active work, but
you switch over to a replicated database and MO Server and be able to continue
with minimal disruption.
It is up to the designer of the agent to determine the failure modes and
recovery from those modes. There are lots of things an agent in conjunction
with a Managed Object could do.
>
> 5. Naming Service
> -----------------
> - I noticed that parts of the current release of JMAPI might
> benefit from the use of a naming service. Are there any plans
> along these lines?
No. We have been assuming that the network may not have a name service
installed or working. We do not want to be dependent on it.
Hope this helps,
Bill