Open Stack

On 10/01/2014 12:37 PM, Jay Pipes wrote:

> IMO, the term "state" should be the only one used in the OpenStack APIs
> to refer to the condition of some thing at a point in time. The term
> "state" can and should be prefaced with a refining descriptor such
> "task" or "power" to denote the *thing* that the state represents a
> condition for.
>
> One direct change I would make would be that Neutron's "admin_state_up"
> field would be instead "admin_state" with values of UP, DOWN (and maybe
> UNKNOWN?) instead of having the *same* GET /networks/{network_id} call
> return *both* a boolean "admin_state_up" field *and* a "status" field
> with a string value like "ACTIVE". :(

Hi Jay,

I wonder if this would tie into our other discussion about 
distinguishing between the "desired state" vs the "actual state". 
Conceivably you could have the "admin state" be UP, but a fault has 
resulted in an "actual state" other than "ACTIVE".

As a reference point, CCITT X.731 goes into huge detail about state and 
status.  They define three orthogonal types of state (operational, 
usage, and administrative), and many types of status (availability, 
alarm, control, etc.)  I'm not suggesting that OpenStack should use 
those exact terms, but it suggests that some people have found it useful 
to have state along multiple axes rather than trying to stuff everything 
into a single variable.

Chris