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

----------------

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

----------------

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

(1) Charter of the Technical Committee

(a) Name of TC 

OASIS Electronic Identity Credential Trust Elevation Methods (Trust  
Elevation) 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.

(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,  (Capgemini)

Jani Anttila,  (Capgemini)

Paul Lipton,  (CA Technologies)

Efraim Moscovich,  (CA Technologies)

Rachid Sijelmassi,  (CA Technologies)

Chandrasekha Sundaresh,  (CA Technologies)

Naveen Joy,  (Cisco Systems)

Roland Wartenberg,  (Citrix Systems, Inc.)

Shishir Pardikar,  (Citrix Systems, Inc.)

Wayne Adams,  (EMC)

Simon Moser,  (IBM)

Mike Baskey,  (IBM)

Thomas Spatzier,  (IBM)

Gerd Breiter,  (IBM)

Frank Leymann,  (IBM)

Manfred Buchmann,  (NetApp)

Adolf Hohl,  (NetApp)

Dhiraj Pathak, PhD,  (PwC)

Mark Little (Red Hat)  - Primary Contact

Carl Trieloff (Red Hat)  - Secondary Contact

John Dunning (Red Hat)  - Technical Contact

David Lutter (Red Hat)  - Technical Contact

Sherry Yu (Red Hat)  - Technical Contact

Vijay Sarathy (Red Hat)  - Marketing Contact

Steve Winkler, , SAP

Richard Probst, , SAP

Michael Schuster, , SAP

Allen Bannon, , SAP

Kevin Poulter, , SAP

Prasad Yendluri,  (Software AG)

Derek Palma, , (Virtunomic)

Afkham Azeez,  (WSO2)

Thilina Buddhika,  (WSO2)

Paul Fremantle,  (WSO2)

Srinath Perera,  (WSO2)

Selvaratnam Uthaiyashankar,  (WSO2)

Sanjiva Weerawarana,  (WSO2)

Charith Wickramarachchi,  (WSO2)

(e) Statements of Support 

Steve Jones, 

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, 

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, 

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,  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, 

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, 

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, 

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, 

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Mark Little, 

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, 

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, 

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, 

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, 

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.

Best Regards,

/chet

----------------

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