[Oslc-Automation] Implementation issues when Automation type is not known
Jing Qian
jqian at us.ibm.com
Tue Jul 3 09:45:37 EDT 2012
Hi David,
Thanks for your reply.
I agree this is only an issue when a given server instance provides more
than one type of Automation.
But this may not be unique to only RQM, I think there could be other
product sharing the same issues, i.e. In theory, Build Forge could be an
automation provider for build as well as an automation provider for
provisioning.
So from consumer side, it would be nice if we have some kind of standard
way to deal with such situation.
One way would be to check for the optional AutomationType attribute if it
is set. And it is the provider's responsibility to set such this attribute
if they are providing more than one type of automation. This attribute
does not need to be an enumeration field, it could be just a String field,
servers for "label" purpose.
Jing J. Qian
Development, Rational Quality Manager
Rational Software
IBM Software Group
4205 S. Miami Blvd.
Durham, NC 27703
Tel: 919-254-9455 T/L: 444-9455
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|David N Brauneis/Raleigh/IBM |
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|Jing Qian/New Haven/IBM at IBMUS, |
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|oslc-automation at open-services.net, oslc-automation-bounces at open-services.net |
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|07/02/2012 05:38 PM |
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|Re: [Oslc-Automation] Implementation issues when Automation type is not known |
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In my opinion this appears to be a problem of your own creation - you have
defined two different Automation Providers for different purposes in your
own product and now you are having a problem in presenting this to end
users.
But most of the Automation Providers are not defining themselves as an
Automation Provider multiple times in a single runtime instance... Are you
suggesting that we should define AutomationType as an enumeration for
AutomationPlan (since it would need to be an enumeration with predefined
well-known values it would have to be required). I have many concerns about
this since we would essentially be forcing every other product to make
changes and require end users to "type" their AutomationPlans in order to
simplify your usage scenario... And would would be defining the
AutomationTypes??? Most product could support numerous AutomationPlans that
might be in support of different (or multiple) types of activities.
This appears to be a unique RQM issue and not something that needs to be
added to the specification.
Regards,
David
____________________________________________________
David Brauneis
STSM, Rational Software Delivery Automation Chief Architect
email: brauneis at us.ibm.com | phone: 720-395-5659 | mobile: 919-656-0874
From: Jing Qian/New Haven/IBM at IBMUS
To: oslc-automation at open-services.net,
Date: 07/02/2012 05:17 PM
Subject: [Oslc-Automation] Implementation issues when Automation type is
not known
Sent by: oslc-automation-bounces at open-services.net
Hi,
In a previous discussion, Pramod has proposed to a oslc_auto:automationType
attribute, but there is some objection to it,
Inactive hide details for see the thread here -
http://open-services.net/pipermail/oslc-automation_open-services.net/2012-June/
see the thread here -
http://open-services.net/pipermail/oslc-automation_open-services.net/2012-June/000182.html
see the thread here -
http://open-services.net/pipermail/oslc-automation_open-services.net/2012-June/000182.html
Automation plan: We don't have oslc_auto:automationType attribute.
Without
this we can't distinguish whether Automation is for build, test,
deployment, cloud etc.. I think this needs to be typed.
<dnb>I actually do not agree with an approach that types the
automation, there are some
automation plans that might perform one or more of those different
types
as a part of the workflow (think a continuous integration or
continuous
delivery product - i.e., DevOps)... How would you characterize those?
Also, some automation providers will exist that can support more than
one
type of automation and do not need them to be separated. What do we
gain
by forcing this?
</dnb>
<pchandor>I think when a AutomationPlan represents a group of
Automations
(like TestSuite in RQM, workflow in DevOps), it might make sense to
call
them "complex" type. Consider a scenario like user is defining a
workflow
in RTC, that when a build automation is completed, wants to run a
Test
Automation. When user will query automation from the automation
provider
(RQM), It would definitely like automation plan of 'test' type be
listed
to choose from. Do we think this should be defined in service
providers
name space?. I think having a type in spec will provide client hint
about
what type of Automation plan it is.</pchandor>
<dnb>I really think this is unnecessary, it is by choosing the
automation plans from the provider
where this "hint" of what the automation plan might do. I think that
the
type would like end up being close to unique per automation provider
which
kind of defeats the purpose. What about automation providers that can
do
some generic automation work, would it then be up to the Automation
Provider to change and require the end user to define the type of
automation it is from a list of categories. I do not see what the
gain for
the consumer is here... If I ask RQM and it returns test, if I ask
RTC and
it returns build, and if I ask RAF and it returns deployment (always
in
each of these cases) what is the purpose?</dnb>
I'm bringing this discussion up again, because from end user story point of
view, we have an issue not knowing the type of automation.
Consider this user scenario:
As a RTC user, I want to set the test(automation) result inside my build
result so that I can view the test result directly from RTC.
When user configures the cross server communication in RTC, the steps are
usually the following
Step1 - Set up server friend relationship
Step2 - Set up the project areas associations
If the friend server is an automation provider that provides several
types of automation (build, test, provision, deployment...etc.), it
could be confusing for the user which one is for which.
Here is an example, RQM is an automation service provider for both
test and provisioning, this could be in its rootservice.xml
<jd:oslcCatalogs>
<oslc:ServiceProviderCatalog rdf:about="
https://myserver1.ibm.com:9443/qm/auto/test/catalog">
<oslc:domain rdf:resource="http://open-services.net/ns/auto#"/>
</oslc:ServiceProviderCatalog>
<oslc:ServiceProviderCatalog rdf:about="
https://myserver1.ibm.com:9443/qm/auto/provision/catalog">
<oslc:domain rdf:resource="http://open-services.net/ns/auto#"/>
</oslc:ServiceProviderCatalog>
</jd:oslcCatalogs>
As you can see, <oslc:domain> for these 2 service providers are the
same, however, they just have different rdf:about URL, one is for
test automation, the other is for provision automation.
But to the end user, when they have to choose the project area
association, all they see are 2 "Uses - Automation" choices, they
don't know which one is for which.
The association would show 2
"Uses - Automation" options, with no additional information to show which
one is for test, which one is for provisioning
Step3 - Using a picker to choose an Automation result
When programming this picker, it will need to be in the context of some
integration points, but if we don't know what type is the automation
association, how can we make sure we display the right content?
e.g. we need to bring up the UI picker to choose an automation
(test) result, but it could show a list of the automation result for
provisioning rather than for test.
Jing J. Qian
Development, Rational Quality Manager
Rational Software
IBM Software Group
4205 S. Miami Blvd.
Durham, NC 27703
Tel: 919-254-9455 T/L: 444-9455
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