Subject: [Netconf] partial-lock, 2.1.1.3

From: Andy Bierman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 10:04:58 -0700

Hi,

I was looking over the partial-lock draft,
and I was wondering if the usage scenario
in this section:

   Multiple managers handling the candidate datastore in a semi-
   coordinated work mode

It seems to me that partial-lock is only really useful
for the <running/> database, not the global <candidate/>.
Multiple, independent (not coordinated) write operations
are far more likely to need locking at all.
The global <candidate/> is basically a one-at-a-time mechanism,
especially when access control is eventually considered.

How are all the managers supposed to know when
the edits are done so one of them can issue <commit>?
What if some unrelated application takes out a partial-lock
and starts editing the <candidate/>?  What if it does
this with no lock at all?

I think the standard NETCONF multi-user database architecture
needs more work.  You get some good features if you use
<running/> as a target, and some other ones if you use
<candidate/> as a target, but not all the features at once.

Andy