Inventory

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An Inventory is a managed record of subjects held, controlled, allocated, available, or otherwise accounted for within a defined scope.

An Inventory can account for:

• Nodes
• Node Sets
• Deployment Targets
• Test Environments
• Artifacts
• Executable Artifacts
• Resources
• Operational Resources
• Software
• Hardware
• Services
• Licenses
• Storage capacity
• Processing capacity
• Test instruments
• Other subjects requiring operational or administrative accounting

An Inventory can record:

• Subject identity
• Subject type
• Subject Version
• Quantity
• Ownership
• Custodianship
• Operator
• Location
• Configuration
• Allocation
• Availability
• Capacity
• Condition
• Operational status
• Deployment status
• Acquisition information
• Applicable license
• Applicable dependencies
• Applicable Policies
• Applicable Governance Policies
• Provenance
• Traceability

An Inventory can provide capabilities for:

• Adding an Inventory record
• Updating an Inventory record
• Removing an Inventory record
• Locating an inventoried subject
• Determining availability
• Determining allocation
• Determining capacity
• Determining operational status
• Reconciling recorded and observed subjects
• Reserving Resources
• Allocating Resources
• Releasing Resources
• Recording changes
• Reporting shortages
• Reporting excess capacity
• Preserving Inventory history

managed record of subjects held, controlled, allocated, available, or otherwise accounted for within a defined scope

Adapted from:

• Resource
• Operational Resource
• Catalog
• Registry
• DIDO Reference Architecture
• DIDO Reference Implementation Conceptual Model
• DIDO-TE draft Requirements Register

An Inventory differs from a Catalog:

• An Inventory accounts for subjects within a defined operational or administrative scope
• A Catalog describes subjects and enables their discovery

A Catalog can describe subjects that are not currently possessed, controlled, allocated, or available. An Inventory ordinarily records their current accounting or operational relationship to the defined scope.

An Inventory differs from a Registry:

• An Inventory accounts for subjects held, controlled, allocated, available, or otherwise tracked
• A Registry authoritatively records subjects under a defined registration process

A subject can appear in an Inventory without being registered. A registered subject can exist without appearing in a particular Inventory.

An Inventory differs from a Repository:

• An Inventory records the identity, quantity, location, status, or allocation of subjects
• A Repository stores, preserves, and provides access to retained content

A Repository can maintain an Inventory of its retained content.

An Inventory record differs from the inventoried subject:

• The Inventory record describes the subject’s accounting or operational state
• The inventoried subject is the Resource, Artifact, system, or other item being accounted for

Changing an Inventory record does not necessarily change the inventoried subject. Changing the inventoried subject does not automatically update the Inventory record.

An Inventory can be:

• Physical or logical
• Manual or automated
• Local or distributed
• Centralized or federated
• Permanent or temporary
• Organization-specific
• Community-specific
• Environment-specific
• Deployment-specific

An Inventory represents a state within a defined scope and at an applicable time. Inventory information can become stale when changes to availability, configuration, allocation, location, or status are not recorded.

An Inventory should identify when its information was observed, reported, or reconciled.

An Inventory does not necessarily establish:

• Authority
• Ownership
• Approval
• Registration
• Conformance
• Validation
• Authorization for use

The Inventory record must identify these characteristics explicitly when they apply.

A DIDO-TE Operational Resource Inventory records the Resources available to support a planned Test Run.

The Inventory records:

• Available Nodes
• Available Deployment Targets
• Available Execution Facilities
• Available storage capacity
• Available processing capacity
• Available network interfaces
• Installed Executable Artifact Versions
• Current configuration states
• Resource allocations
• Operational status
• Applicable Governance Policies
• Applicable Provenance
• Applicable Traceability

A Test Operator uses the Inventory to determine whether the required Resources are available.

The Test Definition Catalog identifies the Test Definition. The Repository stores the Test Definition and Executable Artifacts. The Registry identifies authorized Nodes. The Inventory records which authorized Nodes and other Resources are currently available for the Test Run.