Sun Microsystems Systems Architecture Committee
Subject 	Solaris libpcp
Submitted by 	Venu Mula
File 		PSARC/2005/372/opinion.html
Date 		June 30th, 2005
Committee	Shudong Zhou, James Carlson, Edward Gould,
		William Sommerfeld, Gary Winiger
Steering Committee
		Operating Systems and Networking


  1. Summary

      This case proposes a library interface for Sun management
      applications to communicate with system controllers. 


  2. Decision & Precedence Information

      The project is approved as specified in reference [1]. The project
      may be delivered in a patch release of Solaris.


  3. Interfaces

      Interfaces Exported
      Interface Name 	Classification 	Comment
      pci_msg_t 	Sun Private 	message structure
      pcp_init() 	Sun Private 	init channel
      pcp_send_recv 	Sun Private 	send/recv message
      pcp_close 	Sun Private 	close channel


  4. Opinion

      The ARC review focused on the completeness of the specification
      and the need for common interfaces for communicating with the
      system controllers.


          4.1 Completeness

            The proposal appeared incomplete since it is not possible to
            write an application without a specification of the message
            format to be sent and received. After further discussion,
            PSARC is satisfied with limiting this case to abstract
            libpcp interfaces, with the expectation that the message
            specification will be provided as part of a future FWARC
            case covering the Ontario platform. 


          4.2 Common System Controller Interfaces

            PSARC has noted a plethora of interfaces for Solaris to talk
            to system controllers.
	  o PSARC 2002/198 PICL Plugin environmental ioctls
          o PSARC 2002/199 Remote Management Control (RMC)
          o PSARC 2002/206 Environmental sysevents
          o PSARC 2002/437 PICL plugin environmental ioctls [updated]
          o PSARC 2002/361 PICL Class for Service Processors
          o PSARC 2000/019 LOMlite support software and documentation
          o PSARC 2001/412 LOM bus nexus driver
          o PSARC 1998/074 RSC: Remote System Control
          o PSARC 2000/157 Device Links for RSC
          o PSARC 1997/329 Starfire Network Console
          o PSARC 1999/302 Extend Starfire Network Console for Starcat
          o PSARC 2000/248 PICL Environmental Properties and Classes
          o PSARC 2001/418 PICL environmental classes
          o PSARC 2000/214 PICL classes addendum
          o PSARC 2002/045 Makaha System Management Controller(SMC) Driver
          o PSARC 2000/121 System Alarms and Service Monitoring
            This case is another platform specific addition to the
            collection.

            The lack of standardization in system controller interfaces
            results in a significant waste of resources and must be
            stopped. As each platform team designs and implements a
            different set of interfaces, various management applications
            must be rewritten to consume the new interfaces. Sun
            customers must also be retrained for the new system
            controller interfaces associated with new platforms. A
            strong advise is provided to the Solaris PAC in section 6.


  5. Minority Opinion(s)

      None. 


  6. Advisory Information

      The Solaris PAC and SSG are strongly advised to start a project to
      standardize system controller interfaces and stop the waste of
      resources as described in section 4.2. 


  Appendices


          Appendix A: Technical Changes Required

            None 


          Appendix B: Technical Changes Advised

            None 


          Appendix C: Reference Material

      Unless otherwise stated, path names are relative to the case
      directory (PSARC/2005/372).

         1. ontario_pcp_spec.txt <final.materials/ontario_pcp_spec.txt>