Nimbus

DEPRECATED: The most recent version is Nimbus TP2.1

Workspace Factory Service

The factory service allows a client to instantiate a workspace as a WSRF resource by using the create operation with workspace metadata and a deployment request. The factory service's WSDL can be viewed online. It references a separate types schema.

During the create operation, 1) the workspace and deployment request are semantically validated, 2) the particular values of the metadata and deployment request are authorized, 3) the workspace is scheduled, 4) a WSRF resource representing the workspace is instantiated, and 5) a reference to the workspace is returned to the caller of the create operation.

The workspace and deployment request validation consists of basic checks for inconsistencies and insertion of defaults for missing configurations. For example, the topologies of each must match (although currently only one atomic workspace is supported). Another example of request validation is to search for missing information for which defaults can be added (policy driven) -- e.g., currently a configurable default running time is added if the client did not specify one. Another example is to search for unsupported elements, some of which may possibly cause faults to be returned. Factory settings concerning chip architecture and VMM version are also taken into account.

The authorization phase consists of checking the duration request against a maximum duration policy (this phase is intended to become very flexible, with support for many subjects and types of policies).

The scheduling phase currently only consists of scheduling the workspace to be allowed to start (or be propagated) immediately and enforcing the decided shutdown time. The scheduling code is written in a plugin fashion that can be overriden easily.

The reference to the workspace contains some information useful to the client, it is the return type of the create operation. Note that the resource termination time is different than the running duration added to the instantiation time.

Currently the factory service has five resource properties: the maximum workspace running duration, the default running duration, the supported CPU architecture, the supported VMM version(s) if that is necessary to know, and the configured networking associations that can be requested (see the logistics section).