Glossary

This pages contains definitions of terms used elsewhere in this site. It is maintained in alphabetical order, please keep it that way when adding definitions.

Command Interpreter

The command interpreter interprets the XML received by Ponder2. See Ponder2 XML for the detail of these commands.

Domain

Domains are a means of grouping Managed Objects in an hierarchical structure for management purposes. The grouping is explicit i.e. objects have to be explicitly included/removed from domains. Domains are managed objects themselves. Note that domains only contain links to the managed objects not the managed objects themselves. Thus, a managed object can be member of multiple domains.

Domain Service

The Domain Service maintains the parent/child relationships of domains and other managed objects.

Managed Object

A Managed Object is an entity in Ponder2 capable of receiving and replying to PonderTalk messages. A Managed Object is written in Java and uses Java annotations (i.e. @Ponder2op()) to create the links between PonderTalk message keywords and Java methods. A Managed Object may communicate with other managed objects, it may use Swing as part of a GUI, it may act as an adaptor and communicate with external entities etc. etc.

This simple Managed Object guide gives a step by step explanation for designing, implementing and running a new Managed Object.

This more advanced guide explains how to increase the functionality of your Java Managed Objects such as sending messages to other Managed Objects.

Obligation Policy Interpreter

When the occurrence of an event is notified to Ponder2, the obligation policy interpreter matches the notification against the registered policy events, hands the event to the relevant policies which then evaluate their condition(s) and if they succeed, invoke the action(s) specified in the policy.

Self-Managed Cell

A self-managed cell (aka SMC) is defined as a set of hardware and software components forming an administrative domain that is able to function autonomously and thus capable of self-management.