RE: Device description structures and families

 
For me it makes sense that the repository can map family membership (a namespace-bound property, e.g. gamescorp:bestSupport) to a given device, but I don't think the repository itself is the best place to store the family definitions themselves. Views and stored procedures in an RDBMS move beyond the data layer into the data access layer, and I'm not sure how well this could be done in an XML database or LDAP implementation of a DDR (hey, it might happen :)

The ad-hoc groupings would be the responsibility of the interface layer, or we may even want to move it to the consumer to perform after downloading an output dump of the full DDR, and hence protect DDR administrators from the kind of security/performance problems Rotan mentions.

Cheers
Kevin



Kevin Smith
Technology Strategist
Vodafone Research & Development
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Email: kevin.smith@vodafone.com

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-----Original Message-----
From: public-ddwg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-ddwg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Rotan Hanrahan
Sent: 23 March 2007 14:19
To: public-ddwg@w3.org
Subject: RE: Device description structures and families


I have a practical concern regarding the use or arbitrary query expressions (e.g. expressions that define family membership). It is certainly possible to construct expressions that have a very heavy processing load, as any SQL DB administrator will confirm. An expression involving, say, poorly constructed regular expressions, could tie up a processor for a considerable time. This places a serious and unpredictable burden on the provider of a DDR that supports arbitrary query expressions.

The risk is both from deliberate denial-of-service attacks, and accidental use of ill-conceived expressions.

I would be interested to know how the integrity and availability of a DDR could be maintained in these circumstances.

---Rotan.

-----Original Message-----
From: public-ddwg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-ddwg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Rafael Casero
Sent: 23 March 2007 14:06
To: Andrea Trasatti
Cc: public-ddwg@w3.org
Subject: Re: Device description structures and families


Yes, the ability to describe a stored family is an interesting 
functionality. In the proposed solution there are families with a stored 
definition (i.e. a company perform a study by which obtain a good 
segmentation of devices and provides the resulting families as a 
services) and temporary or dynamic families defined by a 'formula' or 
'pseudo-code' by the requesting user, obviously, the query for the 
family definition applies only to the first case. Technically, the 
problem can be solved in the same way as the temporary or dynamic 
families definition but in the opposite direction: the user can query 
for the property definition and the DDR answers with the formula or 
pseudo-code.

But, maybe there are some other cases in which the provider does not 
want to provide that information, maybe the provider considers that this 
information (the family definition) is his core business and do not want 
to disclose it. We have to think on that scenario too.

In any case, we can add something like 'describeProperty' method at the 
API level that can return the formula or the definition of a derived 
property.

Related to the second point: if the family is a 
previously-stored-definition one (i.e. provided by the DDR) there will 
be no need for re-state the family definition. If the family is user 
defined, the desired behavior  is to not need to re-state, but in that 
case, DDRs have to maintain a session with the user allowing for an 
initial definition an future many uses. We have to decide if the DDRs 
must allow for a session type of communication or if DDRs must follow 
the request/response schema.

If we are dealing with user defined (temporary) families the only two 
ways that I can imaging is session maintenance or re-state the definition.

Well, those are just first thoughts about the problem, I hope it will 
help to think on it and going further.



Raf.Casero


-------- Mensaje Original --------
> This is very near to what I thought about families.
>
> There are two cases that José described that I don't understand if are 
> matched in your proposed solution.
>
> First of all is the ability for a DDR to communicate with the querying 
> individual the structure and definition of a family. This would imply 
> that the DDR is also able to store locally at least the definition of 
> the family. Processing can happen at the request time or stored.
>
> The ability to determine if a device is part of a family. Would this 
> require the querying individual to also re-state the family definition?
>
> - Andrea
>
>
>
> Il giorno 22/mar/07, alle ore 11:17, Rafael Casero ha scritto:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I think there was a somewhat similar problem at OGC (Open Geospatial 
>> Consortium) and maybe its solution can be useful for us too. In order 
>> to explain the similarities (and then the approach) let me first 
>> summarize a little bit our problem.
>>
>> a) There are some 'static' device properties, for instance, screen width
>>
>> b) There are, also, some other properties 'derived' from the 'static' 
>> ones: we can say that belonging to a particular family is the result 
>> of applying a 'formula', for instance,
>> (XHTML-MP = yes) AND (width > 128)  AND  (height > 160).
>>
>> In such a view, the 'family' semantics is the result of applying a 
>> formula (or pseudocode) . The way in which that is implemented in a 
>> real DDR need not to be specified: it can be evaluated on demand or 
>> can be previously evaluated and stored (like any 'static' property), 
>> that will depend on the particular implementation.
>>
>> The similar problem that OGC found is that they have 'features' that 
>> are 'static' properties related to a particular location (i.e., there 
>> is a petrol station at location x, y). For that they defined the 'Web 
>> Feature Server' (WFS) that it is a minimum set of specifications that 
>> a server must comply. Also they have a specification for a 'Web 
>> Processing Server' (WPS) that allows for 'derived' properties or 
>> calculated results (i.e., give me the petrol stations inside the area 
>> defined by xMin, yMin, xMax, yMax). They separate both specifications 
>> because the processing required in the second case can be much 
>> demanding than in the WFS case.
>>
>> Translating this specification to our case will be something like this:
>>
>> a) Families can be defined as a formula or a pseudo-code
>>
>> b) DDRs could have processing capabilities or not
>>
>> c) DDRs, with processing capabilities, could store formulas (or code) 
>> as a way to define families. The way in which they are solved and 
>> processed (on demand, previously stored, etc.) depends on the 
>> particular implementation allowing for a quality of service 
>> differentiation between providers
>>
>> d) Different families can be defined for different companies using, 
>> for instance, name spaces. Then there can be also a business case for 
>> the families definition (effective terminal segmentation)
>>
>> e) Privileged users could be able to define 'derived properties' 
>> (i.e. families) by defining the name (within a name space) and the 
>> formula (or pseudo code)
>>
>> f) Developers could define the 'formula' to apply in the query or 
>> (depending on their privileges) store it as a 'derived property'
>>
>> g) Effective terminal segmentation (families) can be offered by some 
>> providers by defining particular formulas.
>>
>> h) Developers can query for a 'static' or 'derived' property in the 
>> same way transparently, only, maybe, they have to query to a 
>> different DDR depending on the property queried. (Also there is here 
>> a business case: the DDRs that can deliver 'derived' properties can 
>> offer to their customers processing capabilities and good semantics)
>>
>> This figure is like to mimic the OGC way of doing. Of course we have 
>> to discuss if that model is of any use for us but I think is worth to 
>> think at it.
>>
>> What do you think about it?
>>
>>
>> - Raf.Casero
>>
>> -------- Mensaje Original --------
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I have started with some use cases regarding device description 
>>> structures [1]. Two of them are envisaged but not yet written :).
>>>
>>> You are welcome to contribute with more use cases, like those that 
>>> Kevin and Andrea has mentioned these days in the list.
>>>
>>> Feedback from the public and group members is also needed
>>>
>>> Thanks and best regards
>>>
>>> [1] 
>>> http://www.w3.org/2005/MWI/DDWG/wiki/DeviceDescriptionStructuresUseCases
>>>
>>> Rotan Hanrahan escribió:
>>>>> This would assume a common syntax for representing the family rules.
>>>>>     
>>>> And this is precisely where I think the work that José is leading will help us.
>>>>
>>>> ---Rotan
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Smith, Kevin, VF-Group [mailto:Kevin.Smith@vodafone.com] 
>>>> Sent: 20 March 2007 15:48
>>>> To: Rotan Hanrahan; public-ddwg@w3.org
>>>> Subject: RE: Device description structures and families
>>>>
>>>> Hi Rotan, 
>>>>
>>>> Thanks for the clarification...
>>>>
>>>> Another use case is content filtering, e.g. indicating that 'this family gets a movie, while this family gets an image'. Resolution of the expression would involve confirming the requesting device is of a given family. Then the appropriate link or object would be presented.
>>>>
>>>> As both yourself and José say, there could be benefit in sharing some of these family classifications: for example, a games publisher could create a set of rules as to which devices can support their latest games for the best user experience (mature J2ME, good CPU, decent resolution etc.) and this could be represented as a family (possibly namespace bound, eg gamescorp.bestSupport). They could also provide minimum criteria for legacy games (gamescorp.justSupport). Maybe the provisioning of these family rules can be in a DDR extension, or it could be possible in the query to the DDR to ask for the family rules to be fetched from an external source (such as gamescorp themselves). This would assume a common syntax for representing the family rules.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>> Kevin 
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   
>>>
>

Received on Friday, 23 March 2007 14:55:40 UTC