|
List Info
Thread: Innovative use of DIAL for IT management
|
|
| Innovative use of DIAL for IT management |
|
2006-10-18 15:04:18 |
|
|
Purely my own thoughts on this...
— How is interoperability provided concerning the
terms used within the adapter? For example, “Device” may have a different
meaning for the network devices than for digital camera or
projector.
The article does not address the issue of
vocabularies/ontologies for device concepts. Within specific management domains
this may be standardised, such as prescribed branches of the SNMP MIB. But the
article does not elaborate on the issue. The discussion on this issue is best
addressed to the author (who appears to have a particular expertise in the area
of network management metadata).
— Is a document compliant to DIAL if it is XML
format?
No. The fragments being generated by the adaptors could, as
suggested, be valid subsets of a DIAL document. As DIAL is itself an XML
language, the adaptors must also be producing XML. In particular, the author
suggests the representation of management data by transforming to XML and from
there to an XHTML 2 object. Nothing is said about how such objects should be
adapted for rendering purposes. DIAL merely provides a presentation format that
is adaptable, specifically by providing the ability to select/remove subsets of
a DIAL document based on contextual information. But suppose you decide to
select an <object>, then what? Nothing in DIAL says how individual
elements or structures should be adapted to the target presentation. It is up to
individual adaptation technologies to decide what to do. DIAL merely provides a
common authoring language to support adaptation, it does not provide the
specifics of the adaptation process. (I am excluding here the facilities
provided by DISelect, which forms part of DIAL.) In essence, the article is
describing how the management data could be captured and represented in DIAL,
but does not explore how such DIAL instances (containing extremely
domain-specific structures) would be transformed for presentation on a PC
browser. Putting the data into <object> elements does not answer the
question of rendering.
— Following this approach, it is required to have
a Java program for each proprietary format of each device, right or have I
missed something?
Yes.
That is my understanding too. Though I suspect that since there are only a
handful of generally deployed network-based resource management technologies,
re-use or inheritance of code is probably viable.
---Rotan
Dear
Rhys,
thanks for your reply and clarification. However, I’m sure that members of the
DIWG read this article and could probably share their view on this
thread.
Thanks.
Best
regards,
-Christian
:--
:-
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christian Timmerer
:-
Department of Information Technology (ITEC)
:-
Klagenfurt University, Austria
:-
http://research.timmerer.com
:----------------------------------------------------------
>>
Visit the IT Campus Carinthia
>>
http://www.it-campus.at
Hi
Christian,
Kevin
didn̵7;t actually write the article, he merely pointed us to it. I think you
probably need to ask Stephen B. Morris, the author. Unfortunately, Stephen is
not a member of DIWG, so can’t be reached via this mailing
list.
Best
wishes
Rhys
Lewis, chair DIWG
Dear
Kevin,
thanks for this article which is very interesting. The article describes
how information (in a proprietary format like key-value pairs or comma-separated
values) from different devices is transformed into XML format using a Java
program(s). The claim is – as I understood it – that this XML document is
compliant to DIAL.
I have some
questions/comments:
— How is interoperability
provided concerning the terms used within the adapter? For example, “Device” may
have a different meaning for the network devices than for digital camera or
projector.
— Is a document compliant to
DIAL if it is XML format?
— Following this approach, it
is required to have a Java program for each proprietary format of each device,
right or have I missed something?
To be honest, I’m
missing the last step, i.e., between the “Adapter” and the “Web browser on the
PC”.
Thank
you.
Best
regards,
-Christian
:--
:- Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Christian Timmerer
:- Department of Information Technology
(ITEC)
:- Klagenfurt University, Austria
:- http://research.timmerer.com
:----------------------------------------------------------
>> Visit the IT Campus Carinthia
>> http://www.it-campus.at
Stephen
B Morris has posted an innovative use for DIAL at IBM developerworks: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-dial/
He posits
"DIAL provides what might become a standard data platform for IT management.",
which is a very exciting, if unexpected, application!
|
| Innovative use of DIAL for IT management |
|
2006-10-18 15:11:29 |
Rotan Hanrahan schrieb:
> - Is a document compliant to DIAL if it is XML
format?
>
> No. The fragments being generated by the adaptors
could, as suggested,
> be valid subsets of a DIAL document. As DIAL is itself
an XML language,
> the adaptors must also be producing XML.
Is a DIAL adaptor really required to only produce XML? What
about
non-XML formats (e.g. HTML)? Or is this transformation
considered to be
a process following the adaptation?
--
Johannes Koch
In te domine speravi; non confundar in aeternum.
(Te Deum, 4th cent.)
|
|
| Innovative use of DIAL for IT management |
|
2006-10-18 15:31:11 |
You are confusing the term "adaptor". Re-reading
the article may
clarify.
The adaptors described in the article adapt a proprietary
format (e.g.
comma separated values) into something that is placed within
a DIAL
document. As a DIAL document is an XML document, it follows
that the
output of the adaptors (as described in the article) must be
producing
XML fragments. Specifically, the article describes the
production of
XHTML 2 <object> elements.
Completely separate, and *not* described in the article, is
the
subsequent adaptation of the complete DIAL document (within
which the
previously mentioned XML fragments are contained). This is
the document
transformation process. This is *not* described in the cited
article.
The result of transforming DIAL can be absolutely anything.
HTML, WML,
iMode, music, oil paintings, Braille, SVG, ASCII text, RSS
etc etc etc.
None of this is described in the cited article.
The article should be considered a rather unusual and
unorthodox use for
DIAL, and is certainly not a use case that was anticipated
by DIWG. We
do not discount it, but we would not suggest using it as an
example of
how DIAL is intended to be used. By focussing on the
article, we may be
causing unnecessary distraction from the true intent of
DIAL. I suggest
that a reading of the DIAL Primer [1] would be better.
---Rotan.
[1] http://www.w3.org/T
R/dial-primer/
-----Original Message-----
From: www-di-request w3.org [mailto:www-di-requestw3.org]
On Behalf Of
Johannes Koch
Sent: 18 October 2006 16:11
To: www-diw3.org
Subject: Re: Innovative use of DIAL for IT management
Rotan Hanrahan schrieb:
> - Is a document compliant to DIAL if it is XML
format?
>
> No. The fragments being generated by the adaptors
could, as suggested,
> be valid subsets of a DIAL document. As DIAL is itself
an XML
> language, the adaptors must also be producing XML.
Is a DIAL adaptor really required to only produce XML? What
about
non-XML formats (e.g. HTML)? Or is this transformation
considered to be
a process following the adaptation?
--
Johannes Koch
In te domine speravi; non confundar in aeternum.
(Te Deum, 4th cent.)
|
|
| Innovative use of DIAL for IT management |
|
2006-10-18 15:55:31 |
Hello Johannes,
I think that there is a distinction to make here between
DISelect processing, within DIAL, and subsequent adaptation
that might result from processing the resulting DIAL.
The DISelect module within DIAL is designed to help content
authors control expression of content within their markup.
In fact, DISelect can be used in line or externally to DIAL.
I'll be covering this in a forthcoming revision of the
DISelect Primer. Where DISelect is used in an XML document,
then its input and output do need to be XML compliant. Where
DISelect is used in line within DIAL it controls expression
of various parts of the DIAL document. The result is a
modified DIAL document where the DISelect statements have
been replaced by the appropriately selected content.
Typically, the resulting DIAL is then subsequently processed
by further adaptation that can result in it being
transformed into any kind of markup, or indeed non-markup,
data stream. Current implementations of DIAL do exactly this
and can generate any of dozens of types of output stream.
So in terms of your question, the final transformation is
still within the adaptation step but is something that
applies after DISelect processing modifies the DIAL.
I hope that clarifies the situation.
Best wishes
Rhys
-----Original Message-----
From: www-di-requestw3.org [mailto:www-di-requestw3.org]
On Behalf Of Johannes Koch
Sent: 18 October 2006 16:11
To: www-diw3.org
Subject: Re: Innovative use of DIAL for IT management
Rotan Hanrahan schrieb:
> - Is a document compliant to DIAL if it is XML
format?
>
> No. The fragments being generated by the adaptors
could, as suggested,
> be valid subsets of a DIAL document. As DIAL is itself
an XML language,
> the adaptors must also be producing XML.
Is a DIAL adaptor really required to only produce XML? What
about
non-XML formats (e.g. HTML)? Or is this transformation
considered to be
a process following the adaptation?
--
Johannes Koch
In te domine speravi; non confundar in aeternum.
(Te Deum, 4th cent.)
|
|
[1-4]
|
|