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The Provisioning OSID provides a means for requesting
and assigning Resources. There are many
aspects to this service from the set up of a provisioning
system to the acquisition and return of Resources.
Provisionables
A Provisionable represents a resource
to be provisioned. A Provisionable is an
OsidRelationship between a Resource
and a resource Pool. A Pool
is a set of like Provisionables
that can be assigned. For example, a Resource
may be used to represent a car. A Pool
may be used to represent an entire set of cars
that can be rented. The rental agency may have different
classes of cars such as compact cars and full-size cars.
Pools may be created for each class of
cars.
Requests
A Request is made to request a
Provisionable. The requester makes a
Request for entry into a Queue. The
Queue serves as a wait list for a
Provisionable out of one or more Pools.
The Request may optionally support
a Request for a Provisionable
out of a specific Pool, or a
Request for a specific set of
Provisionables .
A Request may be made for any seat on a
flight, any seat in the coach Pool, or any
seat within the aisle coach Pool, or one of
seats 1B, 1C in the first class Pool.
Multiple Requests may be bundled into a
single RequestTransaction. A
RequestTransaction is processed atomically in that
all Requests are fulfilled or none of the
Requests are filled. A
RequestTransaction may be made for a
Request for a flight from Boston to New York and
another Request for a flight from New York
to Barcelona. The Barcelona Request should
not be processed if there are no available flights to New
York.
Provisions
A Provision is the result of fulfilling
a Request. A Provision is an
OsidRelationship between a
Provisionable and a Request. As
OsidRelationships, Provisions
have effective dates and may optionally require a
Provision to be returned. A
ProvisionReturn captures information about the
return of a Provision.
Brokers
A Broker represents the governance of
Queues and Pools. The
Broker manages behind-the-scenes operations such
as consraints on entering a Queue, the
processing of a Queue, and how
Provisionables are automatically assigned to
Requests. The Broker is the
entity to which these various constraints and processing
rules are related. While all Queues and
Pools may be cataloged in various ways, they belong to a
single Broker.
Distributor Cataloging
All Provisions, Requests,
Provisionables, Queues,
Pools, and Brokers
may be organized into federateable OsidCatalogs
called Distributors.
Sub Packages
The Provisioning OSID includes a Provisioning Rules
OSID for managing constraints and processing rules.
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