SSSWG - November 1996 Minutes

November 1996 Minutes of the
IEEE Storage Systems Standards Working Group (Project 1244)
http://www.arl.mil/IEEE
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   Meeting at Hewlett-Packard Facilities
   Cupertino, California, November 5-7, 1996

   Hosted by Hamid Vazire/HP.
   
   Held in conjunction with the SSSWG sponsored MCS meeting
   at Cupertino Marriott of OSVs on November 4, 1996.

   Chair:  Jack Cole,    Model Editor:  Sam Coleman
   Documents Custodian: Dixon Hutchinson
   Archivist:  Bill Wolfe, NASA/Langley Research Center

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Attendance:

   Bob Baird		bbaird@cup.hp.com
   Arun Bali		arun@compucounsel.com
   Carl Braganza	carl@veritas.com	
   Jack Cole		cole@arl.mil		
   Sam Coleman		scoleman@llnl.gov	
   Dixon Hutchinson	hutch@exabyte.com
   Anat Gafni		gafni@veritas.com
   Hamid Vazire		vazire@cup.hp.com
   Joel Williams	joel.williams@ses-inc.com
   Rich Wrenn		wrenn@cookie.enet.dec.com

============================================================

   Attendance was taken, roster information checked, and registration
completed.  Minutes from the College Park meeting in September were read
and approved, as was the modified agenda for this meeting.

   Dixon presented a summary of the SSSWG sponsored meeting he arranged
and conducted with OSV representatives on the SSSWG's proposed Medium
Changer Service standard (MCS). That meeting was held the day before
(Monday, November 4th) at the Cupertino Marriott, and separate minutes
will be published on the SSSWG reflector. The Project Authorization
Request (PAR) for MCS was submitted earlier, and will be acted on by
IEEE in early December.  PAR approval is expected, and the proposed
standard was favorably received at the Monday MCS meeting.

   The group reviewed progress in its PVR and status of PVL.  A general
discussion was again entered on the fit of the group's efforts with the
storage market.  The group felt the need to get information on current
vendor activity in the storage systems market, and invited both SGI and
Veritas to make presentations of their products and works in progress.
Veritas is an active participant in the SSSWG, and SGI participated in
the Monday MCS meeting.

   SGI presented their plan for OpenVault on Wednesday, and Veritas
presented their Network Removable Media Librarian (NRML) product on
Thursday.

   The SGI presentation was one more of what OpenVault does than of how
it fits into an overall model.  SSSWG members were interested in
receiving a presentation from the modeling perspective, and SGI
committed to preparing such a presentation for the January SSSWG
meeting.

   In developing OpenVault, SGI has explicitly avoided using
SGI-dependent methods, enhancing portability instead.  However,
OpenVault is less robust than SGI intends it to be in a year, and they
welcome input and criticism from all.  A point of contact within SGI
for OpenVault is Mike Hardy (mhardy@engr.sgi.com).

   SGI proposed working with the SSSWG toward an open standard which
merges the SSSWG and SGI efforts.  The SSSWG is interested in
collaborating with SGI, and will take a closer look both at OpenVault
and NRML in January.  Participation by others is welcomed.

   As a consequence of this meeting, revision of the Model is postponed.

   Other business at the meeting included a presentation by Bob Baird of
the need for disk state verification.  The group listened, discussed his
views, and found merit in the need.  Bob will write a white paper,
collect further input, and author a PAR for the definition of an "On
Media Store".

   A recurring discussion at the meeting and at other recent meetings
concerned the delineation of physical boundaries of each of the Model's
components.  The subject also arose in respect to NRML and OpenVault.
The discussion will resume in January.

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Action Items:

   SGI - Prepare Model perspective of OpenVault for presentation at
      the January SSSWG meeting.

   Dixon - Provide MCS meeting minutes.

   Bob Baird - Write White Paper on need for disk state verification,
      send to the SSSWG reflector, collect comments, inputs, and write
      a PAR VSS <-> MVR On Media Store Definition.
   
   Jack - Get the Model into HTML format. Work out the details of
      non-attendee participation.

   Rich - Provide a clean copy of the DEC PVL.
   
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Next Meeting:

   January 21-23, 1997, in San Jose, CA area


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Tentative Schedule of Future Meetings:

   11-13 March		Colorado/Dixon
	
   13-15 May		Key West, FL/Jack

   15-17 July		Colorado/Dixon

   16-18 September	Portland, OR (Timberline Lodge)/Jack