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Call for Participation: OASIS Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) Technical Committee

OASIS members & interested parties,

A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) TC has been proposed by the members of OASIS listed in the charter below. The TC name, statement of purpose, scope, list of deliverables, audience, IPR mode and language specified in the proposal will constitute the TC’s official charter. Submissions of technology for consideration by the TC, and the beginning of technical discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC’s first meeting.

The eligibility requirements for becoming a participant in the TC at the first meeting are:

(a) you must be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an individual member of OASIS, and


(b) you must join the Technical Committee, which members may do by using the “Join this TC” button on the TC’s home page at [a].

To be considered a voting member at the first meeting, you must:

(a) join the Technical Committee at least 7 days prior to the first meeting (on or before Monday, December 5, 2011); and


(b) you must attend the first meeting of the TC, at the time and date fixed below (Monday, December 12, 2011).

Participants also may join the TC at a later time. OASIS and the TC welcomes all interested parties.

Non-OASIS members who wish to participate may contact us about joining OASIS [b]. In addition, the public may access the information resources maintained for each TC: a mail list archive, document repository and public comments facility, which will be linked from the TC’s public home page.

Please feel free to forward this announcement to any other appropriate lists. OASIS is an open standards organization; we encourage your participation.

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[a] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tosca/
[b] See http://www.oasis-open.org/join/

Best Regards,
/chet

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Chet Ensign

Director of Standards Development and TC Administration

OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society

http://www.oasis-open.org
Primary: +1 973-378-3472
 Mobile: +1 201-341-1393

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CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

(1) Charter of the Technical Committee


(a) Name of TC

OASIS Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) TC

(b) Statement of Purpose

The goal of the Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) TC is to substantially enhance the portability of cloud applications and the IT services that comprise them running on complex software and hardware infrastructure.

TOSCA will facilitate this goal by enabling the interoperable description of application and infrastructure cloud services, the relationships between parts of the service, and the operational behavior of these services (e.g., deploy, patch, shutdown) independent of the supplier creating the service, and any particular cloud provider or hosting technology. TOSCA will also enable the association of that higher-level operational behavior with cloud infrastructure management.

This capability will greatly facilitate much higher levels of cloud service/solution portability without lock-in, including:

. Portable deployment to any compliant cloud
. Easier migration of existing applications to the cloud
. Flexible bursting (consumer choice)
. Dynamic multi-cloud provider applications

Ultimately, this will benefit the consumers, developers, and providers of cloud-based solutions and provide an essential foundation for even higher-level TOSCA-based vocabularies that could be focused on specific solutions and domains.

(c ) Scope of Work

It is the goal of the TOSCA TC to complete a revision of the Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications, submitted as a foundational specification by Capgemini, CA Technologies, Cisco, Citrix, EMC, IBM, NetApp, PwC, Red Hat, SAP, Software AG, Virtunomic, and WSO2 [1], and to complete the associated XML Schema plus conformance statements that meets the needs of members of the TOSCA TC and the IT industry as soon as possible, consistent with the OASIS process.

The TOSCA TC will leverage this submission as a foundation for further standardization of a basic set of concrete components, relationships and properties (with extension mechanisms to add additional components, relationships and properties). Further work on specific vocabularies, based on these extension mechanisms, is out of scope for this specification, but could begin in parallel with this project, using the TOSCA naming syntax.

The scope of the TOSCA TC’s work is to produce specifications that standardize the concepts as well as XML documents and XML Schema renderings of the areas described below by further refinement and finalization of the input document and any subsequent input documents accepted by the TOSCA TC. The following items are specifically in scope of the resulting TOSCA specification

1. A language that provides the ability to specify a Service Template that can define the topology (or structure) of a service and that can utilize existing process modeling standards (especially BPMN 2.0) to define orchestration (via “plans”) that can invoke the manageability behavior of cloud services.

2. A syntax for naming component types, components, relationship types, relationships, and properties, and for grouping of components.

3. The ability to constrain the use of the various elements and their properties that define the topology of a service.

4. The ability to cross-reference Service Templates to enable composition of services and to enable the management of instantiations of a Service Template in heterogeneous environments.

5. The ability to use virtual images as implementation artifacts for parts of a Service Template.

6. The ability to use application artifacts (e.g. JEE, ABAP, etc) as deployment artifacts for parts of a Service Template.

7. The ability to use other artifacts (e.g. EAR files, OVF files, SCA components, etc) as deployment artifacts for parts of a Service Template.

8. The ability to annotate the various elements that define the topology of a Service Template with policies that influence use of instances of a Service Template. Such annotations could leverage a wide range of policy languages (e.g. WS-Policy [2], KaoS [3], etc.).

Compatibility

There are no formal requirements for upward compatibility. Nevertheless, the specification should be compatible with existing business process modeling standards like BPMN 2.0 [4] and WS-BPEL [5]. Furthermore, interfaces of component types should be able to be expressed in a proper REST-style based on HTTP and specified via WSDL 1.1, and allow for the use of scripts.

Out of Scope

The following is a non-exhaustive list. It is provided only for the sake of clarity. If some function, mechanism or feature is not mentioned here, and it is not mentioned in the Scope of Work section, then it will be deemed to be out of scope. The following items are specifically out of scope of the TOSCA specification:

1. The definition of concrete cloud services, i.e. the definition of concrete component types, relationship types, and topology templates. However, standardization of a basic set of concrete component types, relationship types and properties is intended to be enabled by this work, and could begin in parallel with this project, with appropriate coordination.

2. The definition of concrete plans, i.e. the definition of plans in any process modeling language like BPMN or BPEL.

3. The definition of a language for defining plans (i.e. a new process modeling language).

4. The definition of concrete policies influencing the management and use of instances of a Service Template.

5. The emphasis of any particular single technology (e.g. hypervisor virtualization) for the implementation of cloud services.

6. The emphasis of any particular policy definition language or mechanism.

7. The architecture of a service container used to instantiate service definitions and manage such instances.

8. The interface definitions of a service container.

9. A graphical notation for modeling Service Templates.

10. The definition of semantic models for cloud services.

11. The specification of functional behavior as well as functional composition of cloud services.

Subsequent specifications may provide the Service Templates of concrete cloud services. This will enable, for example, the creation of catalogues of Service Templates in various application domains.

(d) Deliverables

The TOSCA TC will provide the following set of deliverables:

1. A revised Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications, and associated XML Schema plus conformance statements will be approved and completed by the TC within nine months of the first TOSCA TC meeting.

2. A set of sample Cloud Service Templates and related artifacts will be approved and completed by the TC within nine months of the first TOSCA TC meeting. These examples are non-normative, but can be used as test cases for testing conformance of individual TOSCA implementations as well as interoperability between multiple TOSCA implementations.

3. Optionally, such other non-normative deliverables within the scope listed in paragraphs 1-8 such as tutorials or presentations), as the TC may elect, within nine months of the first TOSCA TC meeting.

Maintenance

Once the TC has completed work on a deliverable and it has become an OASIS Standard, the TC will enter “maintenance mode” for the deliverable. The purpose of maintenance mode is to provide minor revisions to previously adopted deliverables to clarify ambiguities, inconsistencies and obvious errors. Maintenance mode is not intended to enhance a deliverable or to extend its functionality.

The TC will collect issues raised against the deliverables and periodically process those issues. Issues that request or require new or enhanced functionality shall be marked as enhancement requests and set aside. Issues that result in the clarification or correction of the deliverables shall be processed. The TC shall maintain a list of these adopted clarifications and shall periodically create a new minor revision of the deliverables including these updates. Periodically, but at least once a year, the TC shall produce and vote upon a new minor revision of the deliverables.

(e) IPR Mode

This TC will operate under the “RF (Royalty Free) on Limited Terms” IPR mode as defined in the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy.

(f) Anticipated Audience

The anticipated audience for this work includes:

1. Vendors and service providers offering products and/or services designed to host or support cloud services, especially.
a. Solutions used to model and create cloud services
b. Solutions that support the execution of cloud services
c. Solutions that manage cloud services
d. Solutions designed to provide (parts of) cloud services as virtual images
e. Solutions designed to deploy or manage cloud services across multiple service providers

2. Other specification authors that require cloud Service Templates

3. Software architects who design, write, integrate and deploy cloud services in a cloud environment as well as in a mix of cloud environments and on-premise environments

4. End users implementing solutions that require an interoperable, composable solution using cloud services Language

(g) Language

TC business will be conducted in (US) English. The output documents will be written in (US) English.

References:
[1] Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications, Draft Specification, September 2011.
[2] Web Services Policy 1.5 – Framework, W3C Recommendation, available via http://www.w3.org/TR/ws-policy/
[3] KAoS, Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, available via http://ontology.ihmc.us/index.html
[4] OMG Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) Version 2.0, available via http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/
[5] OASIS Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) 2.0, available via http://docs.oasis-open.org/wsbpel/2.0/wsbpel-v2.0.pdf

2. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

(a) Similar Work

Identification of similar or applicable work that is being done in other OASIS TCs or by other organizations, why there is a need for another effort in this area and how this proposed TC will be different, and what level of liaison will be pursued with these other organizations.

The TOSCA TC may choose to coordinate, reference, or incorporate roadmaps, definitions, terminologies, and other output of OASIS standards TCs as well as that of organizations such as NIST. For example, it may choose to reference definitions and terminology described in the volumes of the NIST Special Publication 500-293, US Government Cloud Computing Technology Roadmap. The TC may also consider liaisons with other organizations, as it sees fit, and the TC may agree to concurrent work items with other OASIS TCs and other organizations, within the scope defined here. For example, the TC may establish liaisons with ISO JTC1 SC 38, the DMTF, OMG, and such other standards organizations.

(b) Date, Time, and Location of the First Meeting

The proposed “TOSCA TC” will hold the first official meeting on Monday, December 12th, 2011 by telephone and will use a free conference call service. Call-in details will be posted to the TC member homepage on or before December 5, 2011.

(c) On-Going Meeting Plans & Sponsors

The TC will meet weekly or as otherwise agreed upon by the members of the technical committee.

(d) Proposers of the TC

Steve Jones, steve.g.jones@capgemini.com (Capgemini)
Jani Anttila, jani.anttila@capgemini.com (Capgemini)

Paul Lipton, paul.lipton@ca.com (CA Technologies)
Efraim Moscovich, Efraim.Moscovich@ca.com (CA Technologies)
Rachid Sijelmassi, Rachid.Sijelmassi@ca.com (CA Technologies)
Chandrasekha Sundaresh, Chandrasekha.Sundaresh@ca.com (CA Technologies)

Naveen Joy, najoy@cisco.com (Cisco Systems)

Roland Wartenberg, roland.wartenberg@citrix.com (Citrix Systems, Inc.)
Shishir Pardikar, Shishir.Pardikar@citrix.com (Citrix Systems, Inc.)

Wayne Adams, wayne.adams@emc.com (EMC)

Simon Moser, smoser@de.ibm.com (IBM)
Mike Baskey, mbaskey@us.ibm.com (IBM)
Thomas Spatzier, thomas.spatzier@de.ibm.com (IBM)
Gerd Breiter, GBREITER@de.ibm.com (IBM)
Frank Leymann, Frank.Leymann@iaas.uni-stuttgart.de (IBM)

Manfred Buchmann, Manfred.Buchmann@netapp.com (NetApp)
Adolf Hohl, Adolf.Hohl@netapp.com (NetApp)

Dhiraj Pathak, PhD, dhiraj.pathak@us.pwc.com (PwC)

Mark Little (Red Hat) mlittle@redhat.com – Primary Contact
Carl Trieloff (Red Hat) ctrielof@redhat.com – Secondary Contact
John Dunning (Red Hat) jdunning@redhat.com – Technical Contact
David Lutter (Red Hat) lutter@redhat.com – Technical Contact
Sherry Yu (Red Hat) syu@redhat.com – Technical Contact
Vijay Sarathy (Red Hat) vsarathy@redhat.com – Marketing Contact

Steve Winkler, steve.winkler@sap.com, SAP
Richard Probst, richard.probst@sap.com, SAP
Michael Schuster, michael.schuster@sap.com, SAP
Allen Bannon, allen.bannon@sap.com, SAP
Kevin Poulter, kevin.poulter@sap.com, SAP

Prasad Yendluri, Prasad.Yendluri@softwareag.com (Software AG)

Derek Palma, Dpalma@virtunomic.com, (Virtunomic)

Afkham Azeez, azeez@wso2.com (WSO2)
Thilina Buddhika, thilinab@wso2.com (WSO2)
Paul Fremantle, paul@wso2.com (WSO2)
Srinath Perera, srinath@wso2.com (WSO2)
Selvaratnam Uthaiyashankar, shankar@wso2.com (WSO2)
Sanjiva Weerawarana, sanjiva@wso2.com (WSO2)
Charith Wickramarachchi, charith@wso2.com (WSO2)

(e) Statements of Support

Steve Jones, steve.g.jones@capgemini.com
Global Director MDM, Capgemini
As Capgemini’s Primary Representative, I approve the TOSCA TC Charter and its goals of standardising the management and orchestration of cloud solutions, and support our proposers (listed above) as a named co-proposers.

Nancy Cam-Winget, ncamwing@cisco.com
Distinguished Engineer, Cisco Systems, Inc
As Cisco Systems Primary Representative, I approve the TOSCA TC Charter and its worthwhile goals, and support our proposers (listed above) as a named co-proposers.

Paul Lipton, paul.lipton@ca.com
VP, Industry Standards and Open Source, CA Technologies
As CA Technologies Primary Representative, I approve the TOSCA TC Charter and its worthwhile goals, and support our proposers (listed above) as a named co-proposers.

Roland Wartenberg, roland.wartenberg@citrix.com Director, Strategic Alliances, Citrix Systems Inc.
As Citrix Primary Representative, I approve the TOSCA TC Charter and its worthwhile goals, and support our proposers (listed above) as a named co-proposers.

Rob Philpott, robert.philpott@emc.com
Senior Technologist, RSA division of EMC
As EMC’s Primary Representative for OASIS, EMC is pleased with the prospect of developing the TOSCA specifications under OASIS, and approve the TOSCA TC Charter. I support our proposer as a named co-proposer. Additionally, EMC plans to bring more representatives to this project once this important new work is established within OASIS.

Dave Ings, ings@ca.ibm.com
Emerging Software Standards
As IBM’s primary OASIS rep, I approve the TOSCA TC Charter, and endorse our proposers (listed above) as named co-proposers.

Subhash Sankuratripati, Subhash.Sankuratripati@netapp.com
Sr. Engineer – Security, CTO Office, NetApp
As NetApp’s Primary Representative for OASIS, I am excited with the prospect of developing the TOSCA specifications under OASIS, and approve the TOSCA TC Charter. I support Manfred Buchmann and Adolf Hohl as the named participants from NetApp.

Dhiraj Pathak, PhD, dhiraj.pathak@us.pwc.com
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Mark Little, mlittle@redhat.com
As the Red Hat’s Primary Representative to OASIS, I approve the TOSCA TC Charter and its worthwhile goals, and support our proposers (listed below) as a named co-proposers.

Sanjay Patil, sanjay.patil@sap.com
Standards Management & Strategy, SAP AG
As SAP’s Primary Representative for OASIS, I am excited with the prospect of developing the TOSCA specifications under OASIS, and approve the TOSCA TC Charter. I support our proposers (listed above) as the named co-proposers.

Prasad Yendluri, prasad.yendluri@softwareag.com
VP & Deputy CTO
As Software AG’s Primary Representative to OASIS, I approve the TOSCA TC Charter
and its stated goals, and support our proposers (listed above) as a named co-proposers.

Derek Palma, Dpalma@virtunomic.com
CTO Virtunomic Inc
As Virtunomic’s Primary Representative for OASIS, I am excited with the prospect of developing the TOSCA specifications under OASIS, and approve the TOSCA TC Charter.

I, Paul Fremantle, paul@wso2.com
As WSO2’s primary representative to OASIS, fully support the proposed TOSCA TC charter, and support our proposers (listed above) as named co-proposers.

(f) TC Convener

Paul Lipton, CA Technologies

(h) Optional List of Anticipated Contributions

The TOSCA TC intends to use as a foundation and input the draft TOSCA specification provided by Capgemini, CA Technologies, Cisco, Citrix, EMC, IBM, PwC, Red Hat, SAP, Software AG, Virtunomic, and WSO2, as well as any subsequent input documents accepted by the TOSCA TC.