Subject: Re: [sacm] On the -03 version of requirements

From: "Nancy Cam-Winget (ncamwing)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Apr 2014 23:42:20 +0000

Hi Adam,

Just catching up, but your suggestion for flipping makes sense. See
further comments below:

On 3/4/14 5:21 AM, "Adam Montville" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>Nancy,
>
>Thank you for getting -03 uploaded!  It¹s been a really good read so far,
>tooŠ  
>
>If I had a single comment to improve the readability and bring additional
>clarity to the document it would be to ³flip² the labeled descriptions
>where appropriate, which will naturally lead to a requirement-like
>statement followed by more descriptive language.
>
>For example, G-003 is presently written as: ³SACM must support a broad
>set of deployment scenarios.  As such, it is possible that the size or
>posture assessment information can vary from a single assessment that is
>small in (record or datagram) size to a very large datagram or a very
>large set of assessments and must be addressed by the SACM specifications
>defined.  Thus, the data models, protocols and transports must be
>scalable.²  I would take that last sentence, which seems to be the actual
>requirement that is G-003 and make it first: ³SACM data models, protocols
>and transports must be scalable.²  Then I¹d follow with the rest of the
>information.
>
>Organizing the requirements like this should make it easier to track them
>along the way.  
>
>Then, are the following label-to-requirment matches about right?  They
>all appear to be concerned with ³data models, protocols and transport²
>and G-002 appears to be the special case of a requirement for the
>complete description of a data model, protocol or transport rather than
>to the data model, protocol or transport itself...
>
>G-001 Extensibility
>G-002 State machine and detail requirement for specification
>G-003 Scalability
>G-004 Agility
>G-005 Transport variability
>G-006 MTI data attributes (posture assessment)
>G-007 Access control
>
>REQ-001 Attribute dictionary
>REQ-002 Information Model
>REQ-003 Data model to protocol mapping
>REQ-004 Endpoint discovery
>REQ-005 Attribute-based data model querying
>REQ-006 Query-based information collection with filtering
>REQ-007 Asynchronous publication, updates, and/or change modifications
>with filtering
>REQ-008 Data model scalability
>
>
>What makes REQ-008 distinct from G-003?
[NCW] The general one speaks to (G-003) speaks to potentially very large
scale deployments where there may be a very large set of actors.  But
you're right, I probably need to make this more clear as I also
encompassed the scalability for data models (which is REQ-008), protocols
and transports.

>
>Should REQ-006 and REQ-007 be split to cover query operations and then
>cover filtering separately?
[NCW] Do you mean create a new requirement that speaks to the ability to
filter (in either a query or asynchronous notifications)?  I can certainly
do that if that would make things more clear (and distinct).

>
>Are the requirements in a state that allows for testability?  For
>example, upon describing a given data model, could we test that draft¹s
>compliance to G-004 (Agility)?
[NCW] In general yes, but for full testability we may need to put more
absolute values to bound things like scalability (and agility)Š.that said,
I'm not sure we can put such quantification details?

>
>Does this set of requirements imply an increase to the number of drafts
>this working group needs to create?
[NCW] Not sure what you mean, but I expect that the group may need to
define all the work to serve the charter in multiple drafts.  For
instance, I can see distinct documents for information model, data model
and transport; another dimensionality could be applicability of other
working group's drafts with each group being a different draft (e.g. One
for MILE, one for NEA)Š.but this is up for the group to agree upon.

>
>Š
>
>That¹s probably a lot for now and almost certainly enough (too much?) to
>attempt to discuss before the SACM session on Thursday.
>
>Regards,
>
>Adam
>
>