US (NVO/VAO) opinions on HTTP GET in VOSpace 2.0

[Matthew Graham]

Hi,

OK, I'm going to defer further discussion of this option to Garching  
where the working group will take a considered vote.

	Cheers,

	Matthew
	
On Oct 1, 2009, at 3:52 PM, Dave Morris wrote:

>
>
> On 29/09/09 21:52, Doug Tody wrote:
>>
>> Well this is an awful lot of trouble to go to just to get a file
>> from a storage service using a standard protocol.
>
> Yes, it is isn't it.
> If standard HTTP GET works for your data, then please use a webserver.
>
>> In effect what I am suggesting is that we integrate this resolver  
>> service directly
>> into each vospace implementation.
>
> Why ?
> If standard HTTP GET works for your data, then please use a webserver.
> VOSpace is intended to handle the cases where HTTP GET isn't suitable.
>
>> A use case
>> where this would not work is if we have a vospace integrated into a
>> desktop analysis framework and our desktop (e.g. laptop) is operating
>> without an Internet connection.
>
> I'm not sure how embedding a VOSpace service into a desktop  
> application would work.
> Particularly if it didn't have an active Internet connection.
> Could you provide more detail for this ?
>
> On the other hand, what we are working on in AstroGrid is  
> implementing a VOSpace resolver in the VODesktop client. This will  
> resolve resolve vos://... URIs and provide a localhost http://...  
> URL that can be passed via SAMP to other desktop applications on the  
> same machine. The AstroGrid VODesktop client would handle all of the  
> authentication and protocol negotiation and act as a proxy for the  
> other desktop applications. This enables us to access secure  
> resources in VOSpace using the single sign on provided by our  
> VODesktop client and pass the data to other SAMP enabled  
> applications running on the same machine.
>
>> this might mean making HTTP a special case with optimized support.
>> I don't like special cases either but this is a pretty important one
>
> If standard HTTP GET works for your data, then please use a webserver.
> VOSpace is intended to handle the cases where HTTP GET isn't suitable.
>
> So far you have not convinced me that this special case is special  
> enough to justify adding it to the VOSpace specification.
>
> Regards,
> Dave
>