[Interop-dev] Round 2: Network Device Config JSON Schema

[Mitar]

Hi!

> We said that we are not trying to do something too broad and that's
> great but we also should not limit too much its scope, immagine this:
> 
> virtual devices, linux containers. Someone might develop a system where
> you can configure the ram, disk space and other things.

Are we then the right group of people to define something as general as
this? Wouldn't then be better to look in how OpenStack if configuring
their devices and use that? Why then try to define anything specific for
mesh/wireless nodes?

> I would like this schema to be able to represent the attributes of
> something that it is reachable via a layer2 or layer3 network, even a
> virtual-device (immagine hardware unit testing),

Yes, we can try to define a schema which can be for anything: WiFi
enabled watches, Internet of Things sensors, smart kitchen appliances.
All that can be connected to the network this days.

So let's define a schema which will contain a field for configuring the
temperature of my networked microwave oven.

Or maybe we should limit to thing we do and use now?

> after all the discussion I think this schema should have a static
> part (what we are doing right now) and a "dynamic" part that is
> dedicated to attributes that change rapidly over time (what we before
> called the monitoring/telemetry data), pheraphs the two might be used
> either together in a single object or separately, that would also be
> very useful.

I think we are getting again into same direction why we failed to define
such a common schema so many times until now. We tried to do too much. I
would say that just defining few common types would be an achievement.
Do we use an UUID to uniquely represent a network device? What other
common field types can we think about. Let's do that first.

> But it would be VERY useful to MANY people, not just us doing community
> networks, if this schema included also (with optional attributes)
> information like ram, disk space, cpu and other attributes that are not
> strictly related to the fact that you can change its configuration.

Yes yes. But then, why don't we maybe just don't try to reinvent the
wheel hundreds of researches of Internet of things are doing at the
moment? I think if you want so generic thing, then we should move this
discussion to schema.org discussion, or some other relevant mailing
list. Because then it is bigger than us.

There are so many people already working on this. Even SNMP itself and
schemas used in SNMP are an example.

> By allowing this flexibility we can lay the ground for something that
> could be used by many people, and if many libraries and softwares that
> deal with networks start using a common schema it will mean that the
> resulting eco system will be richer, which would be very good for everyone.

Yes, let's define a non-industry standard for all this, while there are
probably industry standards already. This will be definitely be helpful.


Mitar

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