VOSpace vs WebDAV

[Matthew Graham]

Hi Walter,

This is the presentation that Paul Harrison gave in May 2007 on this subject: 

http://wiki.ivoa.net/internal/IVOA/InterOpMay2007GridAndWebServices/VOSpaceWebDAV.pdf

	Cheers,

	Matthew

On May 14, 2014, at 10:19 PM, Walter Landry wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
> 
> At our datacenter, we want to implement some kind of workspace for our
> users.  So the natural thing to do is to look at VOSpace and see if it
> could be bent to our needs.  However, I am also familiar with WebDAV [1],
> and I am having a hard time understanding what advantages VOSpace
> brings.  Just to run down the basics about WebDAV:
> 
> 1) WebDAV supports much of the functionality in VOSpace, including
>   all of these items lifted directly from the VOSpace introduction
> 
>    * add or delete data objects
>    * manipulate metadata for the data objects
>    * obtain URIs through which the content of the data objects can be
>      accessed
> 
> 2) WebDAV is a mature, established standard deployed worldwide on a
>   variety of machines.  Every major desktop OS has WebDAV built in,
>   and you can get clients and servers for every operating system on
>   almost any hardware, including phones, tablets, and supercomputers.
> 
> 3) WebDAV has a number of implementations of the client and server in
>   every programming language you can think of.
> 
> 4) WebDAV is based on http, so it is easy to layer any of a number of
>   authentication schemes on top.
> 
> 5) WebDAV has an easily understood filesystem-like API.
> 
> In contrast, the only compelling feature of VOSpace I can think of is
> the ability to initiate 3rd party transfers.  But it would seem better
> to add a trivial extension to WebDAV rather than creating a completely
> new protocol.
> 
> Moreover, the API for VOSpace is much more complicated, with a lot of
> indirection.  The vos: URI scheme in particular feels like a
> reinvention of DNS for a benefit that I do not see.  It almost goes
> without saying that I have not seen much interest in VOSpace outside
> of astronomy.
> 
> Given all this, it feels like the best use of my time would be to
> install mod_dav on my Apache server and be done in short order.  I
> would guess that my users would even be happier than if I used
> VOSpace.  It is pretty addictive to be able to drag and drop from your
> desktop to a remote WebDAV folder using the standard file browser.
> 
> Now, I am aware that this has been discussed before.  I have also
> spoken personally with one of the authors of VOSpace.  Yet I still do
> not quite see the need for VOSpace.  Could someone enlighten me?
> 
> Thanks,
> Walter Landry
> wlandry at caltech.edu
> 
> [1] http://webdav.org/
> [2] http://www.ivoa.net/forum/grid/2007-March/001713.html
>    http://www.us-vo.org/pipermail/techwg/2005-February/000793.html
> 

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