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Goals for a Configuration Management Network Protocol

Goals for a Configuration Management Network Protocol. Jim Whitehead Univ. of California, Irvine SCM-9 , September 7, 1999. Talk Overview. Brief overview of WebDAV Web D istributed A uthoring and V ersioning But, only was able to finish the “DA” part

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Goals for a Configuration Management Network Protocol

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  1. Goals for a Configuration Management Network Protocol Jim Whitehead Univ. of California, Irvine SCM-9, September 7, 1999

  2. Talk Overview • Brief overview of WebDAV • Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning • But, only was able to finish the “DA” part • Provide a scenario of use for Delta-V • A network protocol for remote versioning and configuration management • A standards effort within the IETF • Present important goals for Delta-V • Outline significant Delta-V design elements • Style of work, workspaces, activities

  3. The WebDAV Protocol • Extends the core network protocol of the Web, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) • Leverages popularity (read: network effects) of existing Web technology • Provides remote authoring of Web resources directly on a Web server • Turns the Web into a writeable, collaborative medium • A standard mechanism by which authoring tools and servers can be compatible • Compatibility leads to network effects

  4. WebDAV Capabilities • Overwrite Prevention • Whole resource locks prevent overwrite conflicts • Properties • Attribute-value pairs for storing metadata • Namespace Management • Hierarchical navigation of Web resources • Create new collections

  5. Scope of WebDAV Methods Web Resource PROPFIND PROPPATCH† Properties (name, value) pairs LOCK UNLOCK COPY MOVE† DELETE† MKCOL† (PUT†) Body (primary state) GET PUT† † - affected by LOCK

  6. Clients Office 2000 Internet Explorer 5 WebDAV Explorer Sitecopy DAV4J (Java API) Servers Internet Information Services 5 Apache mod_dav DAV4J Zope WebRFM Xythos Storage Server Glyphica PortalWare CyberTeams WebSite Director Lite Intraspect Knowledge Server WebDAV Clients and Servers

  7. Delta-V Use Scenario • You’re an employee of a small design firm called DesignHaus • Working on a very time sensitive Web site update • DesignHaus draws its talent from around the world • The team is active 24 hours a day • Tokyo: Kenji supplies graphics and icons • Paris: Denise performs page layout using XSL • New York: Peter writes database to Web glue code • Los Angeles: you’re in charge of XML site content

  8. Delta-V Use Scenario (2) • After finishing a phone call with the client, you start editing an XML product information description • From XML-Author, your XML authoring tool, choose File… Open • Using Delta-V protocol, XML-Author performs a check-out protocol operation • XML-Author discovers Denise is already working on the same file - pops up a dialog box • No problem, you decide to work in parallel with Denise since she is working on layout, not content, hence changes shouldn’t overlap much • XML-Author sends request to download page, and displays it on the screen.

  9. Delta-V Use Scenario (3) • Once you’ve finished your changes… • Select “File… Commit” in XML-Author • XML-Author saves final version (HTTP PUT) • XML-Author sends network request to perform a check-in • Check-in succeeds, and XML-Author discovers Denise has also committed her changes • Pops up a dialog box asking if you want to merge your changes with Denise’s • You select “yes”, starting merge process

  10. Delta-V Use Scenario (4) • XML-Author downloads Denise’s latest revision, and brings up a graphical merge tool • Using the merge tool, you decide which changes to accept, or reject. • When done, select “File… Commit”, and XML-Author makes the necessary protocol requests to write the merged revision, and check it in • Since you’ve been editing in-place on the Web, you’re now ready to call back your client with the latest changes…

  11. Primary Goals for Delta-V • Provide versioning services • Persistent storage of previous revisions of resources • Retrieve history list • Submit comments with changes • Parallel development • Allow two or more people to work simultaneously • Group changes • Gather the low-level changes required to perform a logical change • Configuration management • Versioned sets of versioned resources

  12. Delta-V Goals • Equal support for all content types • Not just versioning of text! • Versioning aware and non-versioning aware clients must interoperate • Existing DAV clients (like Office 2000) need to be able to participate in versioning services • Perform versioning automatically for them

  13. Delta-V Goals (cont’d) • Configuration management capability is an optional extension to versioning capability • Layer 1: versioning • Layer 2: configuration management • Authoring tools typically only need versioning capabilities • More sophisticated tools (programming environments) need configuration management capabilities • Some repositories are only capable of versioning

  14. Delta-V Goals (cont’d) • It must be possible to link to every revision of a resource • Implies that every revision has a distinct URL • Versioning should not disrupt relative URLs • Corollary: if a set of resources is arranged in a hierarchy before they are placed under version control, the hierarchy should be the same after the resources are under version control • There is a tension between these requirements • Separate edit URL space and revision URL space

  15. Delta-V Goals (cont’d) • Revisions may be mutable or immutable • Software development has typically involved immutable revisions • Document management can be more relaxed • Sometimes it isn’t a requirement to track every change • Can be more important to preserve logical name of a revision “June Sales Brochure” • Users don’t want mutable revisions to be emulated by immutable revisions • The intent of mutable revisions is to avoid making a new revision for a small change, like a spelling correction • Mutable revisions will likely not be members of configurations

  16. Delta-V Goals (cont’d) • Some properties on revisions can be changed without creating a new revision • Two kinds of properties • Metadata about the resource • Metadata used for protocol operations • Must be able to modify this type (access permissions)

  17. Delta-V Goals (cont’d) • Internationalization • Internet is used worldwide • Needs to accommodate human languages in current (and even past) use • Affects revision labels • Security • Need strong authentication • Need transport security

  18. Concepts: Versioned Resource Versioned Resource Foo.htm 1 initial Line of Descent Beta1 2 Revision History Revision Id 3 4 Revision Label 5 6 Test1 7 Beta2 Successors Predecessors Source: Chris Kaler

  19. Foo.htm Foo.htm 1 1 2 2 3 Concepts: Checkin and Checkout Checkout Checkin Foo.htm 1 2 Working Resource Source: Chris Kaler

  20. Revision Operations • Create a versioned resource from an unversioned resource • Set its initial revision value to the contents of the unversioned resource • Check-out a revision in an activity • Check-in a resource and either create a new revision (immutable revisions) or update the existing revision in place (mutable revisions) • Cancel a check-out • Describe a revision with comments

  21. Label Operations • Apply a label to a particular revision • Change the revision to which a label refers • Retrieve all labels on a particular revision

  22. Concepts: Activity and Configuration Foo.htm Bar.htm 1 1 Activity: set of related changes activity1 activity1 2 2 activity3 activity2 3 Configuration: specific set of revisions 3 Source: Chris Kaler

  23. 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 4 3 Concepts: Workspace Car.xml Foo.dtd Bar.xml • Workspace • Configurable view of the versioned resources • Revision selection rule (RSR) selects the revisions • Gives each person/team a separate work area Workspace 1 Bar.xml, wrk Foo.dtd, v3 Car.xml, v2 Workspace 2 Bar.xml, v4 Foo.dtd, v3 Car.xml, wrk

  24. Activity Operations • Create and name an activity • Check-out a revision in an activity • Merge an activity into a workspace • Possibly creating a conflict report • Get a list of resources modified in an activity • Apply a label operation to all resources in an activity

  25. Configuration Operations • Create/delete a configuration • Add/remove revisions from a configuration • Use a configuration in a workspace’s revision selection rule to choose revisions in that configuration • Determine the differences between two configurations by listing the activities in one, and not the other.

  26. Acknowledgements • The paper reports on the requirements document of the Delta-V working group • I am not the sole author of this document • Other contributors: Jim Amsden, Chris Kaler, John Stracke, Bradley Sergeant, Geoff Clemm, David Durand, Alan Babich, Bruce Cragun, Jeff McAffer • Was also based on the earlier WeBDAV requirements document, with authors: • Judy Slein, Fabio Vitali, David Durand • WebDAV design team also contributed: • Yaron Goland, Del Jensen, Steve Carter, Asad Faizi

  27. For More Information… • WebDAV Resources • www.webdav.org • Delta-V Working Group • www.webdav.org/deltav/ • WebDAV Working Group • www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/webdav/

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