Re: CIMOM refuses EmbeddedObject with unknown class

I think I will give this one a try, so
it gets fixed as quick as possible. Also, everyone else probably would
first have to dig into that code.

I have a question though, your implementation
of the Job Control Profile .. will it be published OpenSource ? Asking,
because if it is freely available today I could use that for testing.

If you have further question and want
a short turn-around, you are welcome to visit us(the OP Architecture Team)
in our IRC channel.

IRC channel at irc://irc6.oftc.net/openpegasus
(IPV6) or irc://irc.oftc.net/openpegasus
(IPV4).

Channel name: openpegasus

Server webpage: http://www.oftc.net/oftc/

Kind regards,

Marek Szermutzky

Software Engineer / OpenPegasus Maintainer (PMC)

IBM Systems &Technology Group, Systems Software Development / z/OS
Capacity Management and Support

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

IBM Deutschland

Schoenaicher Str. 220

71032 Boeblingen

Phone: +49-7031-16-5182

E-Mail: [email protected]

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

IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH / Vorsitzende des Aufsichtsrats:
Martina Koederitz

Geschäftsführung: Dirk Wittkopp

Sitz der Gesellschaft: Böblingen / Registergericht: Amtsgericht Stuttgart,
HRB 243294

From:
Marek Szermutzky/Germany/IBM@IBMDE

To:
Jan Safranek <[email protected]>

Cc:
Vitezslav Crhonek <[email protected]>,
Andreas Maier/Germany/IBM@IBMDE, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]>, Robert Kieninger/Germany/IBM@IBMDE

Date:
13.03.2013 16:44

Subject:
Re: CIMOM refuses
EmbeddedObject with unknown class

----------

Hi !

Good to have you on the mailing list and thank you for reporting this problem.
It looks like you are the first one trying to implement Job control, not
too surprising though since the profile only was published in May 2012.
EmbeddedInstance/EmbeddedObject support works well perfectly fine in OpenPegasus
as long as instances are based on a registered class (known and full defined
class).

To be honest ... this arbitrarily generated class "__MethodParameters"
was a big surprise to me. My first reaction was to call it a "dirty
trick" and asking for who introduced that concept of a "virtual"
class in the DMTF CIM Schema definition. ;)

But I understand your situation and that this nothing you chose to do.

Let me try to give you a short description on the background and the reason
this doesn't work right now.

The design approach in OpenPegasus for CMPI is to have instances always
be based on a defined class like programming languages do. There you cannot
create an instance of a class without having the class defined. This has
several advantages, obvious things like type-safety and stability but also
in the area of footprint and performance. What I am trying to say is that
with OpenPegasus 2.12.0 I see no easy circumvention which would allow to
implement the indication that uses "__MethodParameters" (that
indication is an optional feature in Job Control Profile).

I discussed this with one of my fellows (Robert Kieninger), we invented
the SCMO model in OpenPegasus together (we made that "instance based
on class only" design decision). We came to the conclusion that supporting
this "__MethodParameters" needs some code changes and a feature
addition to the Single Chunk Memory Object Model.

We basically would add a flag to our internal representation of classes
which says: "virtual". On these "virtual" classes we
would allow "user-defined properties" to be added, just as "user-defined
key properties". Assuming "__MethodParameters" would be
registered with the CIM Server as an empty class and flagged as "virtual",
you now could create CMPI instances from that class and freely add whatever
properties required. The advantage of such an approach is that we do not
lose the performance advantage existing providers, as well as the type-safety
for provider creating instances for defined classes.

I have not done a full analysis on the necessary code changes (effort?)
to implement support for such "virtual" classes, but I believe
this would be the right solution to the Job Control Profile issue. I do
not know the time frame in which you would need this fixed, but assuming
OpenPegasus 2.13 with Release Date of 15 July 2013 is sufficient, can you
imagine working your code and test cases in a way that you would register
a class "__MethodParameters" in OpenPegasus which holds the parameters
for all methods used in your testing (that's the quick hack around the
problem I see) ?

But maybe someone else has a proposal for a quicker solution or circumvention
?

Putting Andreas Maier (Andy) on CC.

Andy ? Do you think we can find someone in IBM to pick up the work necessary
to implement this "virtual" classes concept in SCMO and CMPI
?

Kind regards,

Marek Szermutzky

Software Engineer / OpenPegasus Maintainer (PMC)

IBM Systems &Technology Group, Systems Software Development / z/OS
Capacity Management and Support

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

IBM Deutschland

Schoenaicher Str. 220

71032 Boeblingen

Phone: +49-7031-16-5182

E-Mail: [email protected]

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

IBM Deutschland Research & Development GmbH / Vorsitzende des Aufsichtsrats:
Martina Koederitz

Geschäftsführung: Dirk Wittkopp

Sitz der Gesellschaft: Böblingen / Registergericht: Amtsgericht Stuttgart,
HRB 243294

From: Jan
Safranek <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Cc: Vitezslav
Crhonek <[email protected]>

Date: 13.03.2013
10:22

Subject: Re:
CIMOM refuses EmbeddedObject with unknown class

----------

On 03/13/2013 09:22 AM, Jan Safranek wrote:

> I have a CMPI provider for CIM_MethodResult class under Pegasus 2.12.0.

> It has EmbeddedInstance('CIM_InstMethodCall') property PostCallIndication.

>

> This CIM_InstMethodCall class has EmbeddedObject property

> MethodParameters and description of the property says:

>

> The parameters of the method, formatted as an EmbeddedObject
(with a

> predefined class name of "__MethodParameters".

>

> Now if I set the MethodParameters property with CIM instance of

> not-existing "__MethodParameters" class in my provider,
Pegasus returns

> CMPI_RC_ERR_NOT_FOUND from

> src/Pegasus/ProviderManager2/CMPI/CMPI_BrokerEnc.cpp:mbEncNewInstance()

>

> If I try to use "CIM_ManagedElement" as classname of the
embedded object

> just for testing, Pegasus shows correct property, i.e. these

> EmbeddedInstances and EmbeddedObjects work well for registered classes.

Well, it does not work so well... I can add only properties specified

for CIM_ManagedElement, I cannot add parameters of the method as

properties - the parameter names (=name of __MethodParameters

properties) are different for each method which starts a job.

Am I the first one, who tries to implement job control? How can I return

an output parameter from a method, which created a job, without using

embedded instance? Whole CIM is full of these methods... Do I miss

something?

Jan