OMG Internet Platform Special Interest Group

Minutes of Meeting #19

September 14-15, 1998
Seattle, Washington
 
co-chairs:  Craig Thompson (OBJS) and Shel Sutton (MITRE)
 
OMG document internet/98-09-01
 
OMG Internet Platform SIG homepage: http://www.objs.com/isig/home.htm

Agenda

Attendees (50)

Action Items

Presentations

The presentations are a more reliable source of information than the notes below.  The notes are included for convenience.

The HTTP-NG Next Generation Architecture, Bill Janssen, Xerox PARC

Presentation: internet-98-09-02.

HTTP-NG is a W3C experimental project.  Members are Xerox, Microsoft, IBM, Netscape, others.

The motivation of the project was how do you deploy apps (not just documents) to the WWW via a standard means. No guarantee different ways will not conflict. Other problems: how to use HTTP as a reliable datagram protocol due to tunneling, how to allow programs to talk to each other, when there are multiple OOPLs, and congestion.

The approach is to redevelop HTTP on top of an ORB-like object underpinning (the Xerox PARC ILU system).

The approach is two part: a web characterization effort just broke out to become a separate W3C activity. And a protocol design group, working on the HTTP-NG architecture, specs, interchange formats, and prototype. The goal is a reference implementation and real evidence of performance improvements, then possible standards.

Architecture shows Apps, App I/F Stubs, Messaging, and Transports. All layers are isolated from each other.

Much more on architecture not covered in notes. Modular architecture with means of adding in new modules. Predictable architecture.

One performance test of page accesses with 42 embedded links, integers and larger objects, fetched page many times, data should swamp headers. Using W3ng/webmux, much faster and smaller than IIOP 1.0, Pipelines 1.1, and HTTP 1.0.

HTTP-NG in the IETF since HTTP is in IETF domain. Gave BOF at IETF in Chicago in August. Proposing to Transport Area. Not currently headed for W3C standard.  What about HTTP-NG and CORBA? They currently have functional compatibility with OMG, Java, and the web, with some omissions.  They hope to reuse CORBA services on top of http-ng substrate. They are just now thinking about a detailed OMG rendezvous strategy and this was the topic of hallway discussions.  Could mean that either IDL might change by deltas or a mapping from IDL to NTTP-NG - both upstream. Would want equal time for Java and DCOM. Want XML interface definition to httpng. Another puzzle is services under the httpng hood versus similar services in systems riding on top - or whether this is an artifact of the current differences between the OMG and ILU IDL.

Q:  QoS?  Many IETF discussions on service discovery. The HTTP-NG architecture could work with many QoS parameters.

HTML and XML Directions, Shel Sutton, MITRE

Presentation is internet-98-09-03.  This presentation briefly described and made OMGers more aware of W3C standards or submissions: but we did not quite cover the "so what, how does this affect OMG?" aspect.

Some Web Object Model Construction Technologies, Frank Manola, OBJS

Presentation is internet-98-09-04.  See related papers by Frank: What web technologies might, when taken together, provide something akin to an object model?   Object models involve state, interface, inheritance, …. OOPLs closely couple these but web object models might not do so.  The talk shows how various web technologies can meld into a sort of web object model.  These include:  XML, Xlink, Xpointer, XML Namespace, XML schema and data typing facilities, scriptlets in IE5 (which defines scripts in JScript as COM objects), Netscape JavaScript, Beans.  SGML community keeps semantics separated from structure. Style sheets are one possible place to put the semantics. Talks about how to build web on objects as in httpng and vice versa as in webBroker, XML-RPC, WIDL.

Q: XML and HTTP data typing work. Will they be type consistent. Hope so within W3C. No telling from W3C to OMG. Will need more coordination.
 

Interoperability Clearing House, John Wieler, The OTG

John made a quick informal presentation on the need for a mapping from business terms to technology. A sub problem is to describe component software by its metadata descriptions. Another is to insure the components would fit with each other and interoperate. A third is how the business problem can be mapped to the technology standards. The need is for an open logical repository of specs. The users have a way to vote. There is a facility for validation.  The OBJECTive Technology Group is working toward this.  They held a separate two day meeting at OMG Seattle.

Working Groups

Computer Support for Cooperative Work (CSCW) Working Group

Web/OMA Integration Architectures (WOIA) Working Group

Object Transfer and Manipulation (OTAM) Working Group

Agents Working Group

Document Log

internet-98-09-01.html   Minutes of Internet PSIG Meeting #19
                                             Craig Thompson, OBJS
internet-98-09-02.ps      The HTTP Next Generation Architecture
                                             Bill Janssen, Xerox PARC
internet-98-09-03.ppt      HTML and XML Directions, Shel Sutton, MITRE
internet-98-09-04.ppt      Some Web Object Model Construction Technologies, Frank Manola, OBJS

internet-98-09-05.html  Minutes of Internet PSIG WG Meeting on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
                                            Craig Thompson, OBJS
internet-98-09-06.ppt     CSCW Framework
                                            Henry Rothkopf, MITRE
internet-98-09-07.doc    CSCW Framework
                                            Henry Rothkopf, MITRE

internet-98-09-08.html  Minutes of Internet PSIG WG Meeting on Web/OMA Integration Architectures
                                            Frank Manola, OBJS

internet-98-09-09.html  Minutes of Internet PSIG WG Meeting on Object Transfer and
                                            Manipulation Facility (OTAM), Mike Bigrigg, CMU

internet-98-09-10.html  Minutes of ECDTF/Internet PSIG WG Meeting #1 on Agents
                                            Craig Thompson, OBJS, and Steve McConnell, TBD
internet-98-09-11.ppt     Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents
                                            Francis G. McCabe
internet-98-09-12.ppt     OMG MASIF Specification
                                            Stefan Covaci, GMD Fokus
internet-98-09-13.ppt     Strawman Agent Reference Architecture
                                            DARPA Control of Agent Based Systems Program, Craig Thompson, OBJS
internet-98-09-14.ppt     Agent Research versus Agent Standardization
                                            James Odell, TBD; Roger Burkhart, Deere and Co and Santa Fe Institute
internet-98-09-15.ppt     MIAMI, European Agent Project
                                           Stefan Covaci, GMD Fokus
internet-98-09-16.ppt     KAoS
                                            Jeffrey Bradshaw, Boeing