[acs-wg] An AA creation use case

[Keisuke Fukui]

Continueing from the previous post...

For the rest of comments from Pete,
Ziu, Peter wrote:
> In response to your questions:
> 
> 
>>I'd like to ask everyone which of the below is the real issue we
>>are facing:
>>- Name for the things to be registered; i.e. AA file in my diagram, or
>>  Archive description and Application contents file(s) (includes DD) in
>>  Tom's one. If this is an issue, I can be so much flexible about how
>>  we can call it (them).
> 
> 
> I am not particularly hung up on names right now, that is a refinement 
> issue, and not a defining structure.  The issue is whether there should 
> be a porttype which has a method for pushing an entire and complete 
> physical AA into a repository.  

So do I.


 > Here is my take on the issue:
> 
>  - In the case of an ACS implementation, sending an entire AA imposes a 
> need to "know" about a physical file format.  This is contradictory to
> our statement that "we will not define how an ACS will store it's data".

We will define the archive format, but will not break into the data
representation to each of the file contents. I think it's like a defineing
TCP packet or SOAP envelope without specifying the format or representation
of the payload data.

> For example, if my implementation of ACS requires a method in the porttype 
> that requires the acceptance of a physical AA file, then I must parse the 
> AA file into parts in order to store it into the format that my 
> implementation has chosen.  Perhaps my AA file is stored in thousands 
> of DB2 or Oracle records, since using one record to store an AA file 
> will most likely fail at some point when too big.  

Using the off-the-shelf RDBMS is one of the posibilities and how the record
is designed to accommodate the AA file content is out of scope of the
specification, just like the internal representation of the repository.
Do you believe we need to break into this?

> 
> If I had porttypes that allowed me to remotely construct an AA, we 
> can punt on a physical format and an entire physical AA transmission 
> format.  Providing we have the appropriate porttypes to remotely 
> construct, inspect, and retrieve parts of an AA, then we only need 
> to define on the wire how to move parts of an AA around, yet we can 
> still maintain the notion of an AA and it's integrity, since the 
> interface that constructed it can enforce it's integrity.  This is 
> why Tom has outlined sending the entire AAD (hope that the correct 
> acronym) when replicating.  The receiver of the replica can inspect 
> and traverse the AAD to find the parts to pull the file over in 
> chunks...  especially if there was "modified date" time stamp info 
> on each individual part, then we could explore the replication model 
> I outlined.

Yes we can define only the Descriptor in XML doc, and we can additionally
specify the packet or envelope of the data; this will make easier for future
IDEs comform to the ARI and AAF. If we are discussing we should only have
ARI but not AAF, it may be feasible, but as soon as we specify the AAD
schema, it is a part of the current AAF. So I guess the residue here
is if we were to define the physical format in addition to the AAD schema.

> 
> 
> 
>>- A physical format of the archive; a zip is described in the strawman.
>>  If this is an issue, we can focus on this topics. However, it is not
>>  mentioned as this so far.
> 
> 
>  - I think this is what Tom has been trying to focus on in his .ppt last 
> meeting.  I seemed to have put my physical file comments in the previous 
> question, sorry.

Yes this is my take, too. The only reason why I didn't hit this was no one
pointed this obvious argument so far, if it is.

>>- Partial update of the archive in the repository (It seems to me a
>>  separate issue that can be discussed independently.)
> 
> 
>  - it is related since defining how parts of an AA are created, accessed, 
> modified, and removed have implications that, in the case of physical file 
> formats, would need to be known by ACS if an ACS impl. decided to just 
> write the received AA file to disk, and then later have to modify it.

Yes, it is related, but I thought still we can discuss this at another occasion.

> 
> 
>>- Assuming IDE products to be bound to ACS specification (IMHO, it's
>>  desirable, but the decision remains up to the vendors.)
> 
> 
> I am not sure I understand this question.  No matter what porttype spec 
> we come up with, as long as we do not create any issues for the IDE's or 
> ant (or any other client type), we should be ok.  I think that having the 
> client create one file will have scalability issues to remote clients of 
> ACS for large AAs.

I neither have conceivable reason for this. However, I remember Tom
appealed there is (or should) not such IDEs in the previous conversation.

> 
> 
>>- Or anything else?
> 
> 
> That's my take.

I listed as many as topics I can imagine in my post, and can't imagine any
more at the moment w.r.t. the AA creation use case.


I appreciate comments from anyone.

 - Keisuke