I disagree that the verification idea is purely theoretical.
Note that unlike configuration management tools, verification tools can more easily be combined and can work in concert, because all that matters is that the description of configuration goals and policies is consistent between cooperating tools. There is thus some promise for verification tools that are reusable and sharable, in ways that manipulative tools have not been practical to share. For example, it would be perfectly reasonable to write a verification tool for a single service, such as mail, so that multiple people can collaborate on a complex verification problem without much communication. In this way, verification can be seen as a first step toward automation, for sites still using manual configuration management. It is relatively low-cost and low-risk compared to committing to a fully automated approach. So there is a *very* practical angle to the verification idea that has not been fully explored or exploited. -- Dr. Alva L. Couch Associate Professor of Computer Science Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Tufts University, 161 College Avenue, Medford, MA 02155 Phone: +1 (617) 627-3674 Web: http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~couch _______________________________________________ lssconf-discuss mailing list lssconf-discuss@inf.ed.ac.uk http://lists.inf.ed.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/lssconf-discuss
