Per-Entity Metadata Working Group

[Thomas Lenggenhager <>]

I agree with Scott C. I would not expect many campuses to install a 
local MDQ server. But we need to be able to provide a reasonable option 
for the few ones that want to have an MDQ server under their own control.

I'd compare it with the discovery service. To my knowledge, only a 
single campus in SWITCHaai installed and maintains a local central DS to 
be independent from the federation operated one.
Very few SPs use the local Shib Embedded-DS, most rely on the central DS 
based on SWITCHwayf operated by SWITCH.

No question, the central MDQ of the federation needs to be as reliable 
as possible. My point was that using some third party file sync service 
could reduce the complexity to install and run a local MDQ for the few 
campuses that want to run their own locally.

Monitoring the freshness of the signed files automatically updated by 
the file sync service would be simple to integrate into a local 
monitoring environment: E.g. warn if the oldest file in the synced 
directory is older than one day.

Thomas

On 04.08.16 15:53, Cantor, Scott wrote:
> > Open this directory structure for access via rsync, Dropbox, OwnCloud,
> > 'you name it' to sync the signed files to campuses operating their own
> > local MDQ server to get independent from the centrally operated MDQ. No
> > need for HTTP proxies, just for local MDQ servers at the campuses.
>
> Right, but how many campuses will want to do that? How many will bother? How 
> many will ignore the whole issue because they're being told that moving to 
> this new approach suddenly requires extra work from them?
>
> The group consenus was that while nothing we do should or will make that 
> approach difficult for people to implement, we shouldn't focus on it as a 
> workaround for delivering a reliable service.
>
> All that said, the Dropbox idea is a good one. Why not piggyback on existing 
> cloud services? I like it.
>
> -- Scott

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Thomas Lenggenhager
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