Reference Implementation Meeting 2010-08-24

Notes from the Reference Implementation Group
Date: August 24, 2010
Time: 12pm-1pm
Attendees: Brian Behlendorf, Jason Colquitt, Ron Cordell, Didi Davis, Beau Grantham, Nael Hafez, Uvinie Hettiaratchy, Susan Johnston, Dave Juntgen, Steve Kehlet, Seonho Kim, Srivnivas Koka, Vince Lewis, Chris Lomonico, Umesh Madan, Arien Malec, Greg Meyer, Stephen Outten, Vassil Peytchev, Patrick Pyette, Claudio Sanchez, Paul Saxman, Jas Singh, John Theisen, Rob Wilmot

Current Action Items

#	Date	Action	Status	Owner	Due Date
1	2010/08/18	Contribute to a list of bugs at code.google.com (reference implementation)	Open	Sean Nolan and WG	Recurring
4	2010/08/18	Create a list of action items to be completed so that coders can be directly plugged into the Java reference implementation coding process	Open	Beau Grantham and Brian Behlendorf	2010/08/24
6	2010/08/18	Prepare for virtual sprint to on-board new coders and plug them into projects	Open	Arien Malec, Brian Behlendorf, Beau Grantham	2010/08/24
7	2010/08/18	Organize the virtual Code-a-thon for late August and assist in collocating efforts	Open	Arien Malec and Brian Behlendorf	2010/08/31
9	2010/08/24	Coordinate a "weekly sync" between leads for CSharp + Java teams	Open	Brian Behlendorf, Beau Grantham, Umesh Madan	2010/08/31
10	2010/08/24	Organize a meeting to walk threw a "detailed decomposition" of each reference implementation	Open	Arien Malec	2010/09/07
11	2010/08/24	Review and comment on Beau Granthum's Reference Implementation Components diagram	Open	Entire Workgroup	2010/08/31
12	2010/08/24	Discuss PowerShell issue and Sri Koka's offer to work this off-shore	Open	Umesh Madan and Sri Koka	2010/08/31
13	2010/08/24	Discuss the container/Spring.NET issue off-line	Open	Umesh Madan, Sean Nolan, Chris Lomonico, John Theisen	2010/08/31
14	2010/08/24	Discuss the centralized configuration server (Address/Universal) issue off-line	Open	Vassil Peytchev, Umesh Madan, Greg Meyer	2010/08/31
15	2010/08/24	Raise issue of opening a dialogue between the CSharp Implementation Team and Geographies WG	Open	Brian Behlendorf, Susan Johnston	2010/08/25
16	2010/08/24	Determine if a third Reference Implementation sub-group concentrating on XD* drawing from both the CSharp + Java teams is necessary (if so, to move forward and create one)	Open	Arien Malec, Brian Behlendorf, Beau Grantham, Vassil Peytchev	2010/09/07
17	2010/08/24	Coordinate a separate Java meeting to address the XDR to XDM piece	Open	Vince Lewis, Greg Meyer, Beau Grantham, Brian Behlendorf	2010/08/31
18	2010/08/24	Organize a phone call regarding bounced messages/MDNs	Open	Arien Malec, Greg Meyer, Sean Nolan, Umesh Madan, Beau Grantham	2010/08/31
19	2010/08/24	Propose a virtual stand-up to address tracking issues on the Wiki	Open	John Theisen	2010/08/31

Last Week's Action Items

#	Date	Action	Status	Owner	Due Date
1	2010/08/18	Contribute to a list of bugs at code.google.com (reference implementation)	Open	Sean Nolan and WG	Recurring
2	2010/08/18	Send to the Security &Trust WG: "The reference implementations are solely using a DNS Responder Service to manage CERTs. Should the reference implementations also include an LDAP delivery mechanism as an alternative?	Closed	Arien Malec	2010/08/24
3	2010/08/18	Develop plan to bridge communications gap between the Reference Implementation WG and the Geographies WG	Closed	Susan Johnston	2010/08/24
4	2010/08/18	Create a list of action items to be completed so that coders can be directly plugged into the Java reference implementation coding process	Open	Beau Grantham and Brian Behlendorf	2010/08/24
5	2010/08/18	Develop a Java components skeleton to be posted on the team's wiki page	Closed	Beau Granthum	2010/08/24
6	2010/08/18	Prepare for virtual sprint to on-board new coders and plug them into projects	Open	Arien Malec, Brian Behlendorf, Beau Grantham	2010/08/24
7	2010/08/18	Organize the virtual Code-a-thon for late August and assist in collocating efforts	Open	Arien Malec, Brian Behlendorf	2010/08/31
8	2010/08/18	Determine location for next Face to Face Code-a-thon in September	Closed	Arien Malec, Brian Behlendorf	2010/08/31

Notes

General Housekeeping Items

Brian Behlendorf

• Announced the details for the September Face to Face Code-a-thon
  • Location: Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota
  • Dates: September 21st and 22nd
  • Will be collocated with the NHIN Connect Code-a-thon, yet in own separate room
• Identified that Arien Malec will be in attendance, but Brian will not be in attendance himself

Arien Malec

• Insisted that if members are available, they should attend

Umesh Madan

• Announced that he will not be in attendance because he will be on a much-deserved vacation
  • Will check with Sean Nolan to see if he is available

Arien Malec

• Introduced new practice of asking for cross-group collaboration needs
  • Reasons that project management is a key area for improvement

Didi Davis

• Highlighted the need for cross communication between Java and .NET teams
  • Believes the two implementations are not sharing with one another
  • Proposed having a weekly architecture meeting (as per Arien's suggestion)

Umesh Madan

• Explained that this is indeed the case because both teams have been busy being heads down in coding
• Revealed that both Umesh and Greg have been engaging in such exchanges on an ad-hoc basis

Arien Malec

• Agreed that this would be a good practice moving forward
• Proposed coordinating a more detailed decomposition of reference implementations
  • Teams only performed a higher level decomposition of the implementations at the Face to Face
  • Purpose: so that volunteers can understand the key interfaces and work flows of each implementation
  • It would be good to do on the XDD/XD* side as well

Umesh Madan

• Responded that participants could stick items into the debugger, and then do a unit test
  • Believes that most participants would learn more from this in five minutes than other other activities

Brian Behlendorf

• Informed group that Beau Grantham updated the components skeleton for the Java implementation based on conversations that took place during the F2F
  • Asked the two teams to have a conversation regarding the updated high level diagrams and to comment on Beau Granthum's work

.NET Update for WG

Umesh Madan

• Commented that last week was rather busy given the travel, but enjoyed the opportunity to meet the other volunteers in person
• Outlined the progress achieved by the CSharp team:
  • Two SMTP servers are up and running in their own testing
  • Currently focused on getting the gateway up and running
  • The Config element is up and currently communicating
    • Claudio will be working on the Config System/UI
  • By the end of the week - decent scripts will be set up
  • If SQL is available, then these elements should start working as well

Arien Malec

• Informed group that he is working on unit tests on the Agent side
  • The agent APIs have been fully documented, built through Sandcastle
• Recognized the need to automate the push from the .NET API to the Java API
  • .NET pretty well unit tested
• Stressed the need for the documentation and testing of common elements
• Further stressed that API documentation is the most important thing to get developers running

Umesh Madan

• Commented that the code run pass is going through

Greg Meyer

• Asked where API is being pushed

Arien Malec

• Responded that they are writing scripts to automate that
  • Java - has features that makes this simpler
  • CSharp - will be more complicated for universal application, works best under Windows

Greg Meyer

• Commented that you could utilize Apache Maven for the automation

Arien Malec

• Highlighted the tasks for building Java docs
  • Asked for them to let Arien know and he will do it
• Identified the need for a repository to which they can push out towards
  • Building end states and pushing artifacts

Greg Meyer

• Responded that a HTTP push out to a repository may work
  • Works to the end state and can push any other documentation

Arien Malec

• Believes it may be easier to run the Maven task locally, and then run it on Brian's box

Claudio Sanchez

• Moving on, shared that Umesh gave him a good overview of the agent yesterday
  • White-boarded a first trial of the interface that they will be using
  • Will get 90% of the configuration settings
  • Will try to upload the images of the whiteboard

Umesh Madan

• Commented that this should be pretty straightforward and in good shape
  • Pointed to the Console app
    • It is ugly, but lets one administrate the systems

Greg Meyer

• Is the PowerShell scriptable?

Arien Malec

• Responded that Sri volunteered to get some offshore developers working on that matter

Umesh Madan

• Added that command-line is simple to report to PowerShell

Chris Lomonico

• Working on a basic hashing class
  • Reminded group he needs to get access to give his comments
• Added that he is implementing a container, considering previous set-up

John Theisen

• Addressed the container issue further
  • Implementing one will simplify things
  • But will change how classes find each other

Umesh Madan

• Expressed hesitation to build such a dependency himself
  • Wants the agent interface as simple as possible

John Theisen

• Responded that there are easier container options than using Spring.net

Umesh Madan

• Commented that different people like different frameworks
  • He decided to roll in a basic Config
  • Personally hesitates to trust the agent itself
  • Will talk offline about this (Chris Lomonico, Sean Nolan, Umesh Madan, John Theisen)

Vassil Peytchev

• Provided his update regarding the XDD piece
  • Building the object model for XDD metadata
    • Working on his machine
    • Planning to finish in it a day or two, and plan to push it up
  • It is a fairly simple model, but some work remains to be done
  • Submitted initial service to the repository
    • Thanked Ron Cordell and John Theisen working together

Ron Cordell

• Commented that he had nothing further to add at this point

Sri Koka

• Asked if he can check it out from the repository or if he should wait?

Vassil Peytchev

• Responded that the object model is not in the repository yet
  • Not hooked up to anything yet
  • Vassil only recently took this from Codeplex

.NET Status for Implementation

Brian Behlendorf

• Are they ready for the conversation with the Geographies WG explaining what has been built so far?
  • How close are we to completion?
  • Need to provide the pilot projects something they can pick up and integrate
  • Need to be able to put it out front of the right people

Arien Malec

• Basic SMTP = the code is test-mode ready, nearly production-ready (90% Complete)
  • Needs improvement: Documentation of Code; DNS; Config, Caching side
  • The core functionality is good - you can take it and try it out
  • Wants to involve LDAP for private certificates if possible
• XDD/XD* not ready yet

Umesh Madan

• Commented that they need to make sure the CERT recognition area is polished
  • Reason: They are currently coding faster than testing
• Posited that the "core code" should be done by the end of next week

Vassil Peytchev

• Believes there will be significant progress for the XDR/XDM piece by next week
  • Once you have the object model, then its just trying to configure it to different systems
  • Added that the WG may want to consider SQL to SQL for Config

Umesh Madan

• Responded that it depends on how much configuration = address or universal?
  • The code has both, but it "depends"
  • Agreed to talk about this offline with Vassil and Greg
  • Wants to try to do as little as possible

Greg Meyer

• Had general questions about configuraiton

Brian Behlendorf

• Shared a comment regarding a configuration database

Umesh Madan

• Responded that if you have a farm, then a centralized configuration service is the most useful

Brian Behlendorf

• Asked the .NET team was ready for SMTP-based pilots learning towards a simpler .NET approach
  • Reminded it is important to determine the distance between code-complete and production quality
  • General Response: YES
    • Determined this will be sent to the Geographies WG

Java Update for WG

Beau Grantham

• Informed that there was good progress since the code-a-thon
• Handed it over to Greg Meyer

Greg Meyer

• Stated that he has checked in a gateway implementation
  • Not complete or usuable yet
  • Took from the SMTP agent and decoupled from the SMTP stack
  • Currently writing an Apache James interferer
    • Currently only XML configuration
  • Working on being able to use a URL to determine where the configuration is coming from
• Clarified that he did not make many changes to agent
  • Dependency injection patterns inserted
  • Using Juice, which takes in less than compared to Spring.Net
    • Only takes in one Jar file
• Addressed the LDAP certificate store
  • Currently has tabled public certificates through LDAP
  • Initiated conversation about it on their team page
  • Asked for some additional information

Beau Grantham

• Notified group that he is working on the XDD side
  • Did some java fix work
  • Made things a lot simpler
  • Cleaned up a bunch of warnings
• The XDR to XDM was not working
  • Trying to make the testing easier

Greg Meyer

• Informed the group that he has checked in 70-90 tests on the unit side
  • However much more needs to be completed

Beau Grantham

• Highlighted areas that are being worked on:
  • Configuration web app
  • Cryptography keys
  • An issue tracker
• Informed group of his work on last week's action items
  • Has added tasks to Google code debugger
  • Developed the high level diagrams for Reference Implementation Components
  • Dragon Bashyam was working on some additional action items

Dragon Bashyam

• Confirmed Beau Granthum's remarks

Beau Grantham

• Asked about XDR relay messaging
  • Will there be a spec or a technical document?
  • or Will the Reference Implementation WG work on that?

Vince Lewis

• Commented that they basically provide a registry
  • Forward as E-Mail or XDR to an EHR
• Also asked if that is being spec'd out to another group or if they are working on that?

Arien Malec

• Believes that the whole XD* team should work on this
  • Need to think through the service delivery
  • Would be painful if they do not think this through

Vassil Peytchev

• Pointed towards a potential starting point: an IHE spec for HPD, based on LDAP

Beau Grantham

• Commented that both teams need to be working on that

Arien Malec

• In terms of specifications, added that this is primarily about how the "HISP in a box" installs/configs/explores and finds

Brian Behlendorf

• Proposed a third internal working group on XD*

Java Status for Implementation

Beau Grantham

• Reminded that Java still needs to address XDR to XDM
• Asked about continuous integration
  • Brian providing a box is a good thing
  • Still what about continuous integration?
    • Hooks can be applied to the Google code repository

Greg Meyer

• Commented that the agent code is essentially in line with the CSharp folks
  • Need to focus on certificate storage before you can consider it production ready
  • Gateway - Apache James ridge needs to get pushed in (biggest hole between Java and CSharp)
• Believes the Java team has achieved 90% of the progress of the .NET team

Vince Lewis

• Stressed the needs to get Apache James integrated into the XD piece as well
• Believes that this hole keeps us the Java team at 70% complete
  • Missing that piece that integrates the agent/gateway to the XDR piece
• Emphasized that if he has to work on this from scratch, it may take longer to complete
  • Heard it is not just pure XDM - needs to know the metadata
  • Integrating Apache James into the outgoing piece
• Requested a separate Java meeting regarding the XDM to XDR piece

Arien Malec

• Added that they should not have to start from scratch because that specific code is in there

Brian Behlendorf

• Asked if there are any final questions?

Tool Comments

Brian Behlendorf

• Announced two new tools are available for those who wish to stay current with development activities:
  • A mailing list for commits that are made to the repository at Google Code: [1]
  • An IRC channel for real-time communication
    • Details are available on the reference implementation WG page
    • Developers will "hangout" there to answer questions
• Brian has also mad available an independent web server for hosting of web content that would not be appropriate for the Wiki or the Google Code repository
  • This is where auto-generated API documentation will get published, as [2]
  • Reports from a continuous build and test process would be appropriate, too.
  • You can work with Arien who is setting up an automated build of the docs to have him add tasks to his process, or if you want an independent login to Brian's server, contact him directly

Arien Malec

• Added that you can use a code review link on google code
  • If you check in something and want comments on it, then please use those tools

Bounced Message

Umesh Madan

• Informed group that he was discussing bounced messages with Sean Nolan
  • Greg Meyer has mentioned a lot of problems with this
• Sean has proposed that instead of focusing on the "NAC' part, they should do the "AC" part
  • Notifications is focused on reliable delivery
  • When a postmaster sends an AC, it doesn't request it back

Arien Malec

• Commented that if you are trying to use MDN, the RFC is kind of unpleasant
  • Has put some recommendations about the MDNs
  • Will organize a call about this/send the information (Arien Malec, Greg Meyer, Sean Nolan, Umesh Madan, Beau Grantham)

Tracking

John Theisen

• Identified difficulties in keeping track
• Suggested a virtual stand-up - will post to the WG page