[Openib-windows] RE: [openib-general] IBDM and IBMgtSim ProposalComments

[Sean Hefty]

>I'm not familiar with it, so I can't answer what functional advantage it has.
>I
>would expect that as an abstraction layer, it will hide some of the
>functionality in umad, just like it likely hides functionality in IBAL.  That's
>the price of using a higher level abstraction.  Hal seems to be making the
>argument that the lowest layer is the best to use for Linux, but somehow not
>for
>Windows.  I'm just questioning the inconsistency, independent of OSMV.

Unless I'm mistaken, there are more than a dozen diag tools running on Linux
that are coded to umad.  I think that Hal sees porting umad as the easiest way
to convert those utilities to Windows.

>We're not talking about changing the umad interface in Linux.  Eitan is
>proposing having all diagnostics interface to OSVM to facilitate portability.
>Hal is proposing porting umad to Windows.  I'm saying just use IBAL - it's
>already there and works.

How many programs are currently coded to OSMV?

It seems to me that the person writing the code will decide whether they should
interface at the lowest layer or write to a higher level abstraction for
portability.  I don't see that either way is wrong.  And if the higher level
abstraction is the native interface on one platform, that sounds like a benefit.

- Sean