Minutes of X3T10 SCSI Working Group Meeting - 3/12-13/96

Lohmeyer, John JLOHMEYE at cosmpdaero.co.symbios.com
Tue Mar 19 15:49:00 PST 1996


* From the SCSI Reflector, posted by:
* "Lohmeyer, John" <JLOHMEYE at COSMPDAERO.CO.SYMBIOS.COM>
*

Minutes of SCSI Working Group meeting in San Diego, CA       X3T10/96-136r0
                                       7
Accredited Standards Committee*
X3, Information Technology
                                                   Doc. No.: X3T10/96-136r0
                                                       Date: March 19, 1996
                                                    Project:
                                                  Ref. Doc.:
                                                   Reply to: John Lohmeyer

To:         Membership of X3T10

From:       Ralph Weber, Secretary X3T10
            Larry Lamers, Vice-chair X3T10
            John Lohmeyer, Chair X3T10

Subject:    Minutes of X3T10 SCSI Working Group Meeting
            San Diego, CA -- March 12-13, 1996


                                       Agenda

1. Opening Remarks

2. Approval of Agenda

3. Attendance and Membership

4. Physical Topics
   4.1 LVD SCSI Glitch Tolerance [Ham/Lohmeyer]
   4.2 SPI Amendment (96-130) [Lamers]

5. Protocol Topics
   5.1  Resolution  of  SCSI-3  Interlocked Protocol  (SIP)  Forwarding
      Comments (96-120) [Penokie]
   5.2 Problem with Non-interlocked Busses (95-352r2) [Monia]
   5.3 SIP and Command Queuing (96-112r0) [McGrath]

6. Command Set Topics
   6.1  Resolution  of  the  SCSI-3 Primary Commands  (SPC)  Forwarding
      Comments [Weber]
   6.2 Review of Enclosure Services Interface (ESI) [Snively]
   6.3 Secure Multiple Port Operations (95-322) [Snively]
   6.4  Addition  of software write protect to Mode Page Ah  (96-121r1)
      [Houlder]
   6.5 Granularity of Block Size for Tape (96-114) [Lappin]
   6.6 Reporting non-deferred errors in Log Sense [Dekoning]
   6.7 Informational Exceptions Log Page [Milligan]
   6.8 Clarification of sleep mode (96-140) [Penokie]
   6.9 Clarification of Set Capacity feature (96-143) [Houlder]
   6.10 SCSI-3 Block Commands (SBC) Review [Milligan]
   6.11 SCC-2 Discussion [Penokie]
   6.12 Security Erase [Schultz/Lohmeyer]

7. Other Topics
   7.1 Systems Issues Considerations (95-321r2) [Penman]
   7.2 High Availability SCSI Profile (95-314) [Hagerman]

8. Meeting Schedule

9. Adjournment



                            Results of Meeting

1.    Opening Remarks

John Lohmeyer, the X3T10 Chair, called the meeting to order at 1:23 p.m.,
Tuesday March 12, 1996.  He thanked Skip Jones of QLogic for hosting the
meeting.

As is customary, the people attending introduced themselves and a copy of
the attendance list was circulated.  Copies of the draft agenda and general
information on X3T10 were made available to those attending.

2.    Approval of Agenda

The draft agenda was approved with the following additions:

      6.9 Clarification of Set Capacity feature (96-143) [Houlder]
      6.10 SCSI-3 Block Commands (SBC) Review [Milligan]
      6.11 SCC-2 Discussion [Penokie]
      6.12 Security Erase [Schultz]

3.    Attendance and Membership

 Attendance at working group meetings does not count toward minimum
 attendance requirements for X3T10 membership.  Working group meetings are
 open to any person or organization directly and materially affected by
 X3T10's scope of work.

 The following people attended the meeting:

         Name          S        Organization        Electronic Mail Address
 ---------------------- -- ------------------------- -----------------------
Mr. Lawrence J. Lamers A  Adaptec, Inc.             ljlamers at aol.com
Mr. Ajay Malik         O  Adaptec, Inc.             ajay_malik at corp.adaptec.
                                                    com
Mr. Edward Fong        P  Amdahl Corp.              esf10 at amail.amdahl.com
Mr. Gary Porter        A  Ancot Corp.               garyp at ancot.com
Dr. Benjamin Monderer  V  Box Hill Systems Corp.    ben at boxhill.com
Mr. Clifford E. Strang P  BusLogic                  skip at buslogic.com
Jr.
Mr. Raymond Lutz       V  Cognisys, Inc.            raylutz at cognisys.com
Mr. Peter Johansson    P  Congruent Software, Inc.  pjohansson at aol.com
Mr. Ken Jeffries       V  Dell Computer Corporation ken at volente.us.dell.com
Mr. Charles Monia      P  Digital Equipment Corp.   monia at shr.dec.com
Mr. Douglas Hagerman   A# Digital Equipment Corp. 
  hagerman at starch.enet.dec.
                                                    com
Dr. William Ham        A# Digital Equipment Corp.   ham at subsys.enet.dec.com
Mr. William Dallas     A# Digital Equipment Corp. 
  dallas at wasted.enet.dec.com
Mr. Roger Cummings     O  Distributed Processing    cummings_roger at dpt.com
                          Tech.
Mr. Ralph O. Weber     P  ENDL Associate            roweber at acm.org
Mr. Edward Lappin      P  Exabyte Corp.             tedl at exabyte.com
Mr. Andy Chen          A  Fujitsu Computer Prods    achen at fcpa.fujitsu.com
                          Amer
Mr. Stephen Holmstead  P  Hewlett Packard Co.       stephen at mail.boi.hp.com
Mr. William Martin     A  Hewlett Packard Co.       kc at core.rose.hp.com
Mr. George Penokie     P  IBM Corp.                 gop at rchvmp3.vnet.ibm.com
Mr. Dan Colegrove      A# IBM Corp.                 colegrove at vnet.ibm.com
Mr. Pat Buckland       V  IBM Corp.                 buckland at austin.ibm.com
Mr. Gregory Weaver     O  Iomega Corp.              weaver at iomega.com
Mr. Dennis Moore       P  KnowledgeTek, Inc.        dmoore at netcom.com
Mr. Dean Wallace       P  Linfinity Micro 
          75671.3443 at compuserve.com
Mr. Pete McLean        P  Maxtor Corp.              pete_mclean at maxtor.com
Mr. Jay Neer           A  Molex Inc.                jneer at molex.com
Mr. Edward A. Gardner  P  Ophidian Designs          gardner at acm.org
Mr. Skip Jones         P  QLogic Corp.              sk_jones at qlc.com
Mr. Gene Milligan      P  Seagate Technology        Gene_Milligan at notes.
                                                    seagate.com
Mr. Gerald Houlder     A  Seagate Technology        Gerry_Houlder at notes.
                                                    seagate.com
Mr. Dave Guss          P  Silicon Systems, Inc.     dave.guss at tus.ssi1.com
Mr. Erich Oetting      P  Storage Technology Corp. 
 Erich_Oetting at Stortek.com
Mr. Robert N. Snively  P  Sun Microsystems Computer bob.snively at eng.sun.com
                          Co
Mr. John Lohmeyer      P  Symbios Logic Inc. 
       john.lohmeyer at symbios.com
Mr. Rod DeKoning       V  Symbios Logic Inc.        rod.dekoning at symbios.com
Mr. Akram Atallah      A  SyQuest Technology, Inc. 
 akram.atallah at syquest.com
Mr. Kenneth J. Hallam  P  UNISYS Corporation        ken.hallam at mv.unisys.com
Mr. Paul D. Aloisi     P  Unitrode Integrated       Aloisi at uicc.com
                          Circuits
Dr. Sheldon Schultz    V  Univ. of Cal. at San      sschultz at ucsd.edu
                          Diego
Mr. Eric Swartz        O  Verisys                   eric at verisys.com
Mr. Jeff Stai          P  Western Digital           stai at dt.wdc.com
                          Corporation
Mr. Tom Hanan          V  Western Digital           hanan_t at a1.wdc.com
                          Corporation
Mr. Arnold Limjoco     O  Yamaichi Electronics      6371175 at mcimail.com

44 People Present

Status Key:  P    -  Principal
             A,A# -  Alternate
             O    -  Observer
             L    -  Liaison
             V    -  Visitor

4.    Physical Topics

      4.1   LVD SCSI Glitch Tolerance [Ham/Lohmeyer]

John reported that he started documenting when bus release glitches can
occur.  He to have a proposal by the next SPI-2 LVD meeting.

      4.2   SPI Amendment (96-130) [Lamers]

Larry reported that the functional information in the SPI amendment was
included in the last mailing.  No concerns were raised regarding the
already noted inaccuracies.

Additional needs for corrections were presented by Gerry Houlder and George
Penokie.  George reported that his problem concerned the table 9,
describing DB8-15 and DBP(1) in the P Cable description.  Information in
the table did not appear to match the text.  After some discussion, the
working group agreed that the table defines the actions of the transmitter
(they do not drive the upper data bus signals), while the text concerns the
signals as observed by receivers (they may observe invalid parity on the
upper data bus signals -- actually, if they look, they WILL observe invalid
parity on the upper data bus).  As such, it was agreed that the text is
correct, as written, even though a stronger word than `may' could be used.
George raised concerns that the text does not clearly state that it applies
to receivers.

Larry Lamers stated that George's issue is a clarification, not an
amendment.  After some discussion, George asked that an action item be
recorded for him to provide a written description of the issue so that
clarifications can be made in SPI-2.

Gerry reported that the description of Reselection is missing a "not" in
bullet f) in section 10.4.1.  Referencing the equivalent text in the
Selection section, Gerry noted that the Selection description contains the
"not".  Also, the Reselection text reads as making an outlandish
requirement with the "not" missing.

John stated that he would like to see the amendment document forwarded at
the May meeting.  Larry asked that an action item be recorded for him to
prepare the SPI amendment document.

Gene Milligan described a problem with SCAM.  After some discussion, the
group agreed that no changes (added wording in the amendment) are necessary
as a result of Gene's issue.

In the absence of any objections, the working group recommended that the
plenary approve requesting changes in the ISO version of SPI covering the
amendment text accumulated before the meeting (recorded in 96-130) and the
missing "not" identified by Gerry (recorded in 96-144).

5.    Protocol Topics

      5.1   Resolution of SCSI-3 Interlocked Protocol (SIP) Forwarding
            Comments (96-120) [Penokie]

George noted that all letter ballot comments were resolved during the
January meeting and a revised SIP was distributed in the last mailing.
Gene Milligan reminded George that the comments resolutions discussed
during the January meetings were later amended.  George described the
problem as concerning figures 32 and 33 (pages 45 and 46).  In effect, the
initiator figure 32 should connect to the target figure 33 at the point
where the initiator selection connects to the message out box in the target
figure.  George has agreed to make the change in figures 32 and 33.

George noted that the plenary needs to vote on accepting the comments
resolutions and forward the revised SIP to public review.  Additional
discussion concerned what document changes to forward to public review.
The group agreed to recommend the forwarding of a document containing the
corrections that connect figures 32 and 33.

The need for protocol glitch filtering wording in SIP was discussed.  After
some discussion, the group agreed that glitch filtering must be covered in
SPI, not SIP.

      5.2   Problem with Non-interlocked Busses (95-352r2) [Monia]

Charles Monia reviewed his concerns with lost command ordering interlocks
on serial busses.  There was a lengthy discussion of the needs identified
by Charles.  Distilled to its essence, Charles' proposal would require that
BUSY, RESERVATION CONFLICT, ACA ACTIVE, and QUEUE FULL status values
initiate an ACA-like condition. The only difference between the current ACA
definition and the ACA-like condition described by Charles would be that
the ACA-like condition has no sense data associated with it.

Charles agreed to prepare a detailed proposal for the needed feature, as an
option.  He will bring the detailed proposal to the next working group
meeting.

      5.3   SIP and Command Queuing (96-112r0) [McGrath]

In the absence of Jim McGrath, discussion of this topic was deferred to the
next meeting.

6.    Command Set Topics

      6.1   Resolution of the SCSI-3 Primary Commands (SPC) Forwarding
            Comments [Weber]

John reported that the letter ballot to forward SPC to public review passed
37:3:0:9=49.  Comments were received from Exabyte, IBM, Seagate, Symbios,
Unisys, and Unitrode.

Ralph lead a review of the comments (96-148).  Ralph received advice on all
the issues that concerned him and several others.

The group took a series of straw polls regarding the location of processor
commands and enclosure services.  Four choices were provided for the straw
poll:

    1)Remove the processor commands from the SPC.  Place both the
      processor commands and the ESI commands in a new document.
    2)Keep the processor commands in the SPC.  Place both the processor
      commands and the ESI commands in SPC-2.
    3)Remove the processor commands from the SPC.  Place the processor
      commands in a new document.  Place the ESI commands in a new
      document, different from the processor commands document.
    4)Keep the processor commands in the SPC. Place the ESI commands in a
      new document.

Three votes were taken.  The first vote allowed multiple votes per person
and included all four choices.  The second vote allowed only one vote per
person and included only the first and fourth choices.  The third vote
allowed only one vote per person and included only the winner of the second
vote and the second choice.  The results of the votes were as follows:

Choice / Vote
      1   2      3
   1  9   8
   2 12          7
   3  0
   4  9   9     15

Choice 4 won.  Bob Snively and John Lohmeyer agreed to work together in
writing a project proposal for an ESI standards project.

The working group requested authorization for an SPC editing session on
April 17 and 18 in the San Jose area.  In addition, a editing review
meeting was requested for the Monday afternoon at the May X3T10 meeting
week.

      6.2   Review of Enclosure Services Interface (ESI) [Snively]

Bob Snively described the ESI changes that are required in existing SPC
data formats and commands.  The goal was to define the minimum needed SPC
changes thus allowing the introduction of the changes before the SPC public
review.

Bob then described the ESI diagnostic pages and device model.  Only about
one-fifth of the proposal was reviewed before the available time ran out.
The group also discussed the relationship between ESI and SCC.
[Note from the chair:  An ad-hoc meeting was convened on Thursday morning,
March 14, to review the remainder of the ESI proposal.  The ad-hoc meeting
succeeded in reviewing the complete ESI proposal.]

For this meeting, all the ESI changes were contained in document 95-324r3.

      6.3   Secure Multiple Port Operations (95-322) [Snively]

At the request of Bob Snively, this item was dropped from this and future
agendas.  The group agreed that this or similar topics can be added to
future agendas if needed.

      6.4   Addition of software write protect to Mode Page Ah (96-121r1)
             [Houlder]

Gerry presented his revised proposal.  Further minor revisions were made.
In the absence of any objections, the working group recommended that the
plenary approve inclusion of the revised text in the SPC.

      6.5   Granularity of Block Size for Tape (96-114) [Lappin]

Ted Lappin presented 96-114r1, a proposal that allows devices to restrict
the granularities of the block sizes that they support.  In the absence of
any objections, the working group recommended that the proposal be approved
for inclusion in the SSC.

      6.6   Reporting non-deferred errors in Log Sense [Dekoning]

Rod DeKoning presented a request to expand the definition of the last n
deferred error events log page.  After a brief description of the problem,
Rod proposed minor wording changes for section 8.2.3.  He asked that the
section title be changed from "deferred error events" to "deferred errors
or asynchronous events" and that throughout the clause "deferred errors" be
changed to "asynchronous events or deferred errors".

In the absence of any objections, the working group agreed to handle making
the change as if it were a letter ballot comment.  The change will be added
to the Symbios comments list in the SPC comments document.

      6.7   Informational Exceptions Log Page [Milligan]

Gene Milligan presented a proposal for a new log page.  The group noted
that the proposed page code was in the vendor-specific range and agreed to
allow continued use in the vendor-specific form.  The group rejected
changing the SCSI standard.

      6.8   Clarification of sleep mode (96-140) [Penokie]

George described a change for handling of power condition 5 in the
START/STOP UNIT command.  He accepted several comments for corrections in
his proposal.  He agreed to prepare a revised proposal, to distribute it on
the SCSI Reflector, and to bring the topic back for discussion at the next
working group meeting.

      6.9   Clarification of Set Capacity feature (96-143) [Houlder]

Gerry presented a proposal to make permanent saving of the set capacity
conditional on the SP bit being one.  The group generally rejected the idea
of having the SP bit apply to mode header data.

      6.10  SCSI-3 Block Commands (SBC) Review [Milligan]

The group discussed scheduling an editing session for SBC as part of the
May X3T10 meeting week.  The group requested scheduling of the editing
meeting for all day Friday of the May meeting week.

Gene described the changes made to SBC in revision 2.  Gene then brought
several technical issues to the attention of the working group.  The
working group provided Gene with advice about the issues he raised.

In the absence of any objections, the working group recommended that the
Plenary accept SBC revision 2 as the current working draft for the project.

      6.11  SCC-2 Discussion [Penokie]

The working group agreed to generate a project proposal for SCC-2.  John
Lohmeyer took an action item to generate a draft SCC-2 project proposal.

      6.12  Security Erase [Schultz/Lohmeyer]

Dr. Sheldon Schultz of the University of California at San Diego Center for
Magnetic Recording Research described a governmental requirement for
complete erasure of a disk drive.  The group discussed the needs
and mechanisms for introducing the needed changes to the SBC.  John
Lohmeyer volunteered to work with Gene Milligan to develop a proposal.  Bob
Snively volunteered to work with John conducting an investigation of
existing commands that might be used unmodified to perform the requested
function.

7.    Other Topics

      7.1   Systems Issues Considerations (95-321r2) [Penman]

John Lohmeyer reported that Duncan Penman believes that the technical
report document has content that is ready for forwarding.  John and Larry
Lamers discussed hiring an editor to restructure the existing information
into a technical report format.

Gene Milligan asked if the work needs to be coordinated with IEEE and SC26
open boot projects.  John expressed the belief that some X3T13 members
might be more familiar with possible coordination issues.

      7.2   High Availability SCSI Profile (95-314) [Hagerman]

Doug Hagerman described the possibility of writing a profile for SCSI
devices that are used in high availability systems.  The first order of
discussion was determining the correct group to be the owner of the work.
X3T10 and STA (the SCSI Trade Association) were two choices for the owning
group.  It was agreed that the high availability profile issue belongs in
X3T10.  John agreed to help Doug write a project proposal for the high
availability technical report.

8.    Meeting Schedule

John reviewed the proposed meeting week schedule for March 1996.  The next
meeting of X3T10 SCSI Working Group will be May 7-8, 1996, in Fort
Lauderdale, FL at the Fort Lauderdale Marriott North (305-771-0440), hosted
by Adaptec, Inc.

9.    Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 6:33 p.m. on Wednesday March 13, 1996.




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