Registry Interfaces 1.1 RFC

[Walter Landry]

Markus Demleitner <msdemlei at ari.uni-heidelberg.de> wrote:
> Hi Theresa,
> 
> On Wed, Feb 08, 2017 at 05:56:26PM +0000, Theresa Dower wrote:
>> Almost  conversely, since all of the searchable registries have
>> independently been doing a full re-harvest from scratch every N
>> (6?) months to account for unannounced deleted records, I'm okay
>> with declaring that activity an operational requirement for
>> searchable registries.  It isn't easy to validate compliance like
>> defining an API, but is still worth stating.  I'll add this unless
> 
> Since it's not validatable anyway, I'd not make it a formal
> requirement.  But right below the discussion of the levels of deleted
> record support, I could well see language like:
> 
>   Searchable registries are not required to do full harvests of
>   publishing registries with no support for deleted records every
>   time, so their operators cannot expect their deletions to propagate
>   quickly.  Searchable registries SHOULD do full harvests for such
>   registries regularly, perhaps on an order of a month, however, to
>   enable even such registries to shed obsolete records.  
>   
>   To provide some resilience against software bugs or operating
>   errors, searchable registries also SHOULD perform occasional full
>   harvests of registries supporting deleted records.  In VO practice,
>   six months have turned out a good interval for such routine full
>   synchonisation.

Six months is a really long time.  Ideally, you should do full
harvests much more frequently.  But it is easy for me to tell other
people to work harder ;) In any event, I would prefer to take out all
explicit references to time.  So something like

   Searchable registries are not required to do full harvests of
   publishing registries with no support for deleted records every
   time, so their operators cannot expect their deletions to propagate
   quickly.  Searchable registries SHOULD do full harvests for such
   registries regularly, however, to enable even such registries to
   shed obsolete records.
   
   To provide some resilience against software bugs or operating
   errors, searchable registries also SHOULD perform occasional full
   harvests of registries supporting deleted records.

Cheers,
Walter Landry