[Oslc-Automation] OSLC resource template creation proposal

[Michael F Fiedler]

In the 11 April Automation meeting we discussed a scenario around creating
templates of resources and a proposal for satisfying it.   There were a few
issues raised and agreement to recap and continue the discussion on the
mailing list.

The scenario document [1] does a good job of describing the requirement, so
I will no re-hash them here beyond stating that a consumer needs to create
a template or draft of an Automation Request which will be used to
create/POST a real Automation Request for execution at a later point in
time.

The proposed solution presented by Umberto Caselli was a new OSLC dialog
type which I will tentatively call templateDialog (might be in oslc
namespace, might be in oslc_auto).    templateDialog would appear in the
service provider document in the same manner as creationDialog and
selectionDialog.   The behavior would be:

   - consumer hits the templateDialog URL and brings up a UI which would
likely be the same as, or very similar to, an Automation Request creation
dialog
   - consumer fills out the parameters for the template and hits OK or
Submit
   - The provider creates the representation for the Automation Request and
uses the OSLC delegated UI protocol to return the resource to the consumer.
   - The provider can choose to persist the template resource or not
   - The consumer later uses the resource it received to POST a new
Automation Request at a later time for execution.   This could also be used
for repeated scheduled executions.

Some discussion items which were raised - see the meeting minutes [2] for a
longer list
   - Automation Plan could change after template creation and the consumer
is using a stale/incorrect template.   However this window could exist
today, perhaps smaller.
   - Creation of a new dialog type seems "heavy" in terms of an addition to
a domain spec.  Should this be part of OSLC core if other domains have this
requirement or scenario?
   - Can OSLC prefill (perhaps with use of other metadata such as HTTP
headers) be used to satisfy this scenario?

[1] -
http://open-services.net/wiki/automation/Automation-Template-Scenarios
[2] - http://open-services.net/wiki/automation/AutomationMeetings20130411/


Regards,
Mike

Michael Fiedler
IBM Rational Software
fiedler at us.ibm.com
919-254-4170
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