September 1998 Minutes

IEEE Storage System Standards Working Group (P1244)


Held at  Systems Engineering and Security, Inc.
September 15-17, 1998 Greenbelt, Maryland

Evening Out at the Marrakesh Restaurant
New York Avenue, Washington, D.C.
 

IEEE Sponsor, Merritt Jones
SSSWG Chair, Jack Cole
MMS Technical Editor, Geoff Peck
MSSRM Editor, Sam Coleman

1244.1 Architecture/Data Model (Geoff Peck, editor)
1244.2 Session Security, Authentication, and Initialization Protocol (Jan Klier editor)
1244.3 Media Management Protocol (Murali Sathyanarayana, editor)
1244.4 Drive Management Protocol (Joel Williams, editor)
1244.5 Library Management Protocol (Joel Williams, editor)

ATTENDANCE (17).

Scott Allen             STK               scott_allen@stortek.com
Curtis Anderson         SGI               curtis@sgi.com
Jack Cole               ARL               jack.cole@ieee.org
Vicki Grey              LEGATO            vgrey@legato.com
Lai Fong Ho             LEGATO            lho@legato.com
Dixon Hutchinson        EXABYTE           hutch@exabyte.com
Tony Houdeshell         EMASS             tonyh@emass.com
Merritt Jones           MITRE             merritt@mitre.org
Jan Klier               HP                jan_klier@hp.com
Ben Kobler              NASA              ben.kobler@gsfc.nasa.gov
Paul Lockwood           LEGATO            plock@legato.com
Kati Nelson             LEGATO            knelson@legato.com
Geoff Peck              QUANTUM (Cons.)   geoff@peck.com,
Alan Rollow             COMPAQ            alan@nabeth.cxo.dec.com
Murali Sathyanarayana   SGI               murali@engr.sgi.com
Michael Walker          EMC               walker_michael@isus.emc.com
Joel Williams           SES               joelw@ses-inc.com

THANKS.

Systems Engineering and Security (SES) kindly provided us with meeting space, copying, dinner arrangements at the Marrakesh Restaurant, phone, and internet connectivity.

ADMINISTRATIVE.

The meeting began at 8:30am Tuesday with attendance and registration. Minutes from the July meeting in Redmond were accepted, as was the proposed Agenda with modifications. An additional evening meeting was held, and the general meeting ended around noon on Thursday.

BALLOTING.

Those in attendance were reminded of the need to be IEEE Standards Association (SA) members based on one flavor or another (regular, affiliate, etc) of IEEE membership in time to serve as balloters of the standards being developed.
 

DISCUSSION.

Our initial intention was to follow the process begun at the end of the July meeting. That is, of quickly reviewing documents for deficiencies and building lists of deficiencies for later corrective work, rather than attempting to address completely all deficiencies in real time.

We modified this approach with very positive effect.  Instead of a detailed, document-by-document review, we began the review with the least-developed document, and allowed the review to suggest major areas needing work in all the Media Management System (MMS) drafts.

So the review began with the Library Management Protocol (LMP) draft, and resulted in a "parking lot" of areas most needing work. This prioritized list ("1"= highest priority) was:

Priority Completed   Topic
  [1]       [?]      blind robots
                        - label processing helper apps
                        - protein robots subsumed
  [2]       [X]      drive cleaning
  [3]       [X]      magazines/cartridge groups
  [3]       [X]      cartridge orientation
  [3]       [ ]      reservations
  [3]       [ ]      eject and openport commands (ill-defined)
                          move vs mount
                          cases of more than one port
  [4]       [X]      port to drive opts

We constrained ourselves to consideration of minimal change solutions, and we avoided unnecessary feature creep. Delaying draft completion by embracing new features without significantly benefiting the value of resulting standards could not be accepted.

The need to deal with blind robots was deemed to be sufficiently high to warrant the extra (and significant) work to modify the drafts.  Blind robots were discussed, progress was made, but the discussion was incomplete by the end of the meeting.

Adding functionality for orienting optical media was addressed because a modest, but significant benefit could be achieved with only modest work to include the change.  This discussion was completed.

No progress was made on reservations, although there is a standing proposal, and after the meeting offline discussions will be held.

Although not an area of active development at the moment, "Mover" was briefly discussed in regard to the possibility of  two flavors:  one which would use only mandatory IEEE labeling and another which would handle legacy tapes.

Discussing "drive cleaning" resulted in new commands being added to the Drive Management Protocol (DMP), and a description of cleaning being added to Architecture.  No changes will result to the Media Management Protocol (MMP) since only a simple mount of a cartridge with type "clean" will be required.

A slight change in the authentication protocol of the "Session Security, Authentication, Initialization Protocol" (SSAIP) was adopted after brief discussion (change suggested by Ken Renard/ARL in a teleconference before the meeting). 

Several who attended stated their satisfaction with the degree to which discussions were focused and productive, reflecting the common goal of all present to produce reasonable standards within a self-imposed deadline (next spring).

The current schedule is to finish drafts by the end of the November meeting.  It was agreed to add a day to that meeting, so that it will be 3.5 days long.  December and January will be used for balloting, and balloted drafts will be submitted to IEEE on or before February 9th, 1999.

ACTION ITEMS.

  Editors     Develop drafts
  Everyone    Help develop balloter list
  Joel        Reformat Data Model tables
  Paul        Supply training diagrams clarifying MMS
  Murali      Put MMP list of errors in appendix
  Scott       Provide Curtis with ideas about reservations 
  Merritt     Invite balloters
  Curtis      Provide Joel with Openvault error conditions
  Vicki       Provide Geoff with words for Architecture abstract & scope 
  Dixon       Arrange January meeting in Colorado
  Jack        Arrange March meeting San Diego, add day to November meeting
  Geoff       Arrange May meeting in Phoenix

REVIEWERS INVITED.

Reviewers are encouraged to contact Jack or Geoff for access to the draft standards. Attendance at meetings is not required to review drafts.

 
Next Meeting.  Nov 15-18, 1998 Casa Marina Hotel, Key West, FL

Starts at Noon on Sunday with catered lunch, ends by 6pm Wednesday (3.5 day meeting). Thursday, October 15th is the cut off date for the block of rooms held for the "IEEE SSSWG" at Casa Marina.  Room rates are $160/night for Standard Ocean View Room (recently renovated) or Island View Suites. Call (800)626-0777 for reservations.

Future Meetings.


SSSWG Home