[Oslc-Automation] Changes I have made to Actions specs based on Actions issues list

John Arwe johnarwe at us.ibm.com
Thu Mar 13 13:29:41 EDT 2014


I think the trouble with inheriting from fixed body to automation request 
interaction pattern is how failures are detected by the client.  But maybe 
I'm reading something into the spec that others are not.  Think about the 
distinction (in Automation, but I don't think in Fixed Body) that must 
exist between success *of the HTTP request* (status code) and success *of 
the client's intent* aka the action's binding (which maps 1:1 to the HTTP 
request in the case of FB, but can differ in the case of AR).  In 
particular, what happens when the HTTP request is successful but the 
action was NOT accomplished, which only Can Occur in the Auto Request IP I 
think.

Example:
Client goal: issue start command for JES2 (pick your favorite resource - 
doesn't matter).

[It so happens that in this case, JES2 is currently in a state such that 
it cannot be started.  All the requests below are destined to Fail.  Take 
that as an assumption.]

Client finds core:action > rdf:type=core:Action with bindings for fixed 
body and auto request (for simplicity here, two separate and disti
Auto request: POST( auto-req ), 201 Location: AR1, GET AR1, 200 + 
state=complete verdict=failed
Fixed body (no parameters, not an Automation-related pattern; use the CM 
pattern): POST, 4xx or 5xx response ... probably 409 conflict, exact value 
doesn't matter.  Point is, it CANNOT be 2xx (except 202) because it wasn't 
successful.  If it's 202, HTTP is wide open (no interop) anyway.
Fixed body (happens to use Auto Request):  POST( auto-req ), 200  ... how 
does the client know that it's supposed to look inside the representation 
(which might be opaque to it) for the verdict?  I thought the point of 
having the fixed-body pattern is the body is opaque to the client.

I took it on faith that when we christened things "interaction patterns" 
that we were, of necessity, admitting that sometimes the pattern necessary 
to accomplish the action requires more than one HTTP request.  FB == 1 
HTTP request in my thinking; AR is >=1.
We've concentrated on the "everything works" cases too, so perhaps people 
had ideas about failure flows that don't align with what I have sketched 
out above.  If so, let's get the other mental models rendered explicit.

Best Regards, John

Voice US 845-435-9470  BluePages
Tivoli OSLC Lead - Show me the Scenario




From:   Martin P Pain <martinpain at uk.ibm.com>
To:     John Arwe/Poughkeepsie/IBM at IBMUS, 
Cc:     oslc-automation at open-services.net, "Oslc-Automation" 
<oslc-automation-bounces at open-services.net>
Date:   03/13/2014 12:54 PM
Subject:        Re: [Oslc-Automation] Changes I have made to Actions specs 
based on        Actions issues list



I see that as compatible with Actions Appendix A: 

http://open-services.net/wiki/core/Exposing-arbitrary-actions-on-RDF-resources/#constructing-http-requests 


200 (OK) to indicate that the action has completed 

201 (Created) to indicate that the request resulted in the creation of a 
new resource; the Location response header provides the URL of the newly 
created resource. The client is responsible for interrogating the 
resource’s state to determine whether or not the action has completed. One 
use of this in certain profiles is to use the OSLC Automation 
specification’s mechanisms to monitor its progress and success/failure. 

202 (Accepted) to indicate that the request has been queued and will be 
dealt with at a later time, at which point it might succeed or fail. 



Do you see an incompatibility (here or elsewhere)? I don't see an AR 
returning 200 other than when it has "finished", which is the same as the 
FB case. (Or is it not the same?) 
Do we need to link to this from somewhere else in the spec to make it 
clearer? 


Martin Pain
Software Developer - Green Hat
Rational Test Virtualization Server, Rational Test Control Panel
Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration - Automation WG joint chair 

E-mail: martinpain at uk.ibm.com
Find me on:  and within IBM on:   




IBM United Kingdom Limited
Registered in England and Wales with number 741598
Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hants. PO6 3AU 



From:        John Arwe <johnarwe at us.ibm.com> 
To:        oslc-automation at open-services.net, 
Date:        13/03/2014 14:57 
Subject:        Re: [Oslc-Automation] Changes I have made to Actions specs 
based on        Actions issues list 
Sent by:        "Oslc-Automation" 
<oslc-automation-bounces at open-services.net> 



I'm saying: 

1: When it is the case that the request has completely finished by the 
time the server sends its response, then it has a choice of status codes: 

1a: 200 is appropriate when the server has no intention of persisting the 
entity in the HTTP response; its response must be multityped as both 
AutomationRequest and AutomationResponse *and* entity's state must be 
"finished" (as defined by Auto 2.0) .  Since (as far as the client can 
tell) nothing was created, the client has no subsequent responsibility to 
delete anything... and, indeed, it receives no URL from the server against 
which it would use in a subsequent DELETE request; it could attempt to use 
links in the response entity or a query, but there are enough "not Must"s 
in 2.0 that it is not guaranteed to find such a URL if it did try. 

1b: 201 is more appropriate in all other Automation-governed cases.  The 
201-Location's resource can be anything allowed by Automation, which 
includes but is not limited to case 1a. 
 
The 201 Automation-governed qualification is because I can see the 
*potential* to use AutomationRequest's in ways other than what the 
Automation spec defines, for example in a generic 202 response entity as 
we've discussed before.  But that's outside Automation, hence outside the 
scope of this discussion. 

2: We have concrete cases where 200 was anticipated [2], and where it was 
shown as a potential consequence of 2.0's content [1]. 

3: I am confirming that the concrete cases have in fact been implemented, 
and there is a deployed base of exploiting products currently in 
operation. 
Best Regards, John

Voice US 845-435-9470  BluePages 
Tivoli OSLC Lead - Show me the Scenario 




From:        Martin P Pain <martinpain at uk.ibm.com> 
To:        John Arwe/Poughkeepsie/IBM at IBMUS, 
Cc:        oslc-automation at open-services.net, "Oslc-Automation" 
<oslc-automation-bounces at open-services.net> 
Date:        03/13/2014 09:37 AM 
Subject:        Re: [Oslc-Automation] Changes I have made to Actions specs 
based on        Actions issues list 



So are you saying "We have concrete cases for 200 - but in those cases the 
action has completed, so there's no bug", 

or are you saying "We allow providers to return 200, but don't define in 
the spec what that means so it could mean anything, so the bug stands" 
Do we have any concrete cases for a 200 being returned when the Result has 
not been finished? 

or are you saying "We allow providers to return 200, and it's possible 
that that could mean it hasn't finished, but it's unlikely that that will 
happen (or that's base use of the HTTP return codes) so it's the 
provider's problem not the specs - so there's no bug"?



Martin Pain
Software Developer - Green Hat
Rational Test Virtualization Server, Rational Test Control Panel
Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration - Automation WG joint chair 

E-mail: martinpain at uk.ibm.com
Find me on:  and within IBM on:   






IBM United Kingdom Limited
Registered in England and Wales with number 741598
Registered office: PO Box 41, North Harbour, Portsmouth, Hants. PO6 3AU 



From:        John Arwe <johnarwe at us.ibm.com> 
To:        oslc-automation at open-services.net, 
Date:        13/03/2014 12:13 
Subject:        Re: [Oslc-Automation] Changes I have made to Actions specs 
based on        Actions issues list 
Sent by:        "Oslc-Automation" 
<oslc-automation-bounces at open-services.net> 



[in cheesy chop-socky movie style] What?!?  You dare question the spec-fu 
master?!?  [lips keep moving for another 5 seconds] 

Base Automation (2.0) allows producers to return a 200 in cases where they 
return a request+result and the result has already "finished" [3].  See 
[1], [2]; we have implementations using this since 2.0 - it's somewhat 
popular in operations actually, where the duration of the plan's execution 
varies widely based on parameters ... hitting one endpoint is quick, 
hitting 10K of them... less so. 

We oscillated wildly during 2.0 drafting on the subject of how "obvious" 
to make this case; it's really just an optimization of the "more 
traditional" 201/poll Automation flow, so we ended up being fairly low key 
about it.  If you look at the wiki history for section [3] you'll see how 
it waxed and waned.  One of the "optimizations" inherent in using 200 
instead of 201 is that there is no need (with 200) for the provider to 
persist the request+result representation at all (although it's still free 
to); as far as the client is concerned (a) there is no need/perhaps 
ability to GET/poll for it (b) there is no need to DELETE it.  So it saves 
at least 2 HTTP flows over the normal case, with all that implies. 


[1] 
http://open-services.net/wiki/automation/OSLC-Automation-Version-2.0-Samples/#Example-2 

[2] 
http://open-services.net/wiki/automation/Synchronous-Execution-Scenario/ 
[3] 
http://open-services.net/wiki/automation/OSLC-Automation-Specification-Version-2.0/#Asynchronous-and-Synchronous-Automation-Execution 

Best Regards, John

Voice US 845-435-9470  BluePages 
Tivoli OSLC Lead - Show me the Scenario 

> > A FB-200 means "I did it" 
> > (past tense, otherwise it should be a 202).  A AR-200 means "I 
> > created the AR, now you [consumer] monitor it until state/verdict 
> > say it's baked".
> 
> I would expect AR factories to return a 201 Created response code. 
> Appendex A states: 
> 
> http://open-services.net/wiki/core/Exposing-arbitrary-actions-on-
> RDF-resources/#constructing-http-requests 
> "201 (Created) to indicate that the request resulted in the creation
> of a new resource; the Location response header provides the URL of 
> the newly created resource. The client is responsible for 
> interrogating the resource’s state to determine whether or not the 
> action has completed. One use of this in certain profiles is to use the 
> OSLC Automation specification’s mechanisms to monitor its progress 
> and success/failure." 
> 
> So the only issue, as I see it, is if providers respond with a 200 
> when it has created an Auto Request, which I would consider to be 
> bad practice anyway (I haven't checked if the spec says what 
> response code it should use, but I woudn't be suprised if it doesn't 
say). 
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