A
SSET
A
SSIGNMENT
M
ODEL
As revised 2006.06.05
Bionic Buffalo Tech Note #56
Security:
Unrestricted
1. Introduction and Rationale
Various computing environments usually have mechanisms for an application to request the use of
assets or resources such as memory, network connections, or CPU time. Sometimes these mechanisms
are standardized, sometimes they are proprietary. Examples of standardized mechanisms include:
•
The POSIX and UNIX specifications describe APIs to allocate memory (
malloc()
), create file
handles (
open()
), or to establish loci of execution (
pthread_create()
).
•
CORBA defines factories for various kinds of objects or programming constructs
(
Object::duplicate()
,
Container::create_alias()
, or
POA::create_POA()
).
•
The DSM-CC User-Network Session protocol defines message sequences enabling a client to
request bandwidth, connections, or other resources from the network.
Some protocols or standards make reference to “resources”, but consider different things. For example,
the primary focus of the Web Services Resource Framework (WSRF) is communication with
“resources”, as they define the term, and not their allocation, assignment, and control.
The Asset Assignment Model (AAM) seeks to describe the control, acquisition, and release of generic
assets, without defining the behaviour of the assets themselves. The word “asset” is used instead of
“resource”, as a better fit to the metaphor and semantics of the model, and to reduce confusion with
other models. The model describes the following activities:
•
the description of assets in a generalized, extensible way, to facilitate matching assets to
requirements
•
the aggregation of assets into groups, so that they might be controlled together in atomic
operations, without the complexity of a complete transaction oriented model
•
the various operations needed to allocate, release, consign, or otherwise control assets in
common application environments
AAM is intended not only as an abstract modelling tool, but also is specified in sufficient detail that it
might be implemented as a concrete set of objects. It is expected that practical implementations of AAM
will create specializations of the abstract AAM objects.
2. Overview of the Model
The following diagram summarizes AAM.
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